Higashine, in the middle of Japan’s “cherry-blossom country” in Yamagata, is where you will find Yamagata Casio Co. Ltd. Currently the company is Casio’s main facility for the production of top-quality mobile phones, clocks and cameras. Casio’s other products are largely manufactured at the company’s plants in China and Thailand.
The operation at Yamagata Casio covers the entire chain from circuit board and mould tool production to injection moulding of components, and finally assembly of the high-class products.
Over the past ten years, mould tool production, which provides employment for 90 people, 55 of whom work with CAD/CAM, has increased its turnover by a factor of ten.
Kietsu Satake, General Manager Production Dept. Plastic Device Div. explains: “As long ago as the early 1980s, System 3R products were a part of our operation and contributed to the development of the company. First the Mini system, but later, with the first steps towards automation just over ten years ago, the Macro family.”
First to be installed was a Mitsubishi DIAX with System 3R’s 3Robomatic electrode changer. This was soon followed by a second die-sinking EDM machine with electrode changer and ID system.
Electrode manufacturing has not yet been automated. The reason can be seen here – 20 manual Macro chucks on the machine table. A load like that keeps the machine busy for quite a while.
The start of the new century saw the installation of the first fully-automatic production cell – a Mitsubishi die-sinking EDM machine with a WorkMaster. The magazine was filled with Macro- and MacroMagnum pallets for electrodes and workpieces respectively. The effect was immediate; the automatic cell more than doubled the number of spindle-hours per month. As a result, a second, identical cell was installed within a year.
The three Mitsubishi wire EDM machines were also updated with pallet changers, two with MacroWEDM and one with MacroTwin.
Kietsu Satake: “Our way of working has changed a lot in recent years. EDM used to dominate, but today high-speed milling accounts for about 70 % of machining. It’s far quicker, and there is less need for polishing afterwards.
Kietsu Satake, General Manager – ”Lead times have been cut by two-thirds thanks to the highly efficient cells”.
So in 2003, the first automatic production cell for milling arrived. A Yasda 950 with WorkMaster for 12 Dynafix pallets, each pallet fitted with a vice or a magnetic table. This was followed one year later by a Yasda 640 with WorkMaster, also with Dynafix pallets.
And last year a third Yasda with WorkMaster was installed, this time with 24 MacroMagnum pallets in the magazine. Here too, the pallets were fitted with a vice or a magnetic table. In addition, there is space in the magazine for 15 HSK cones.
This cell is truly a sight to see, since it also includes a compact loading station with a magazine for 500 cutters, that is, cutters not clamped in HSK cones!
The life of the cutters is not very long. The upper limit is 50 metres material removal. When the cutter has been used up, the robot lifts the HSK cone with the cutter into the loading station. The cone is heated and the used cutter is replaced with a new one, cooled down and put back in the WorkMaster magazine ready for another 50-metre run.
One of the nine automatic production cells – high-speed milling & WorkMaster with MacroMagnum and HSK cones in the magazine.
Layout drawing: WorkMaster & Two Yasda YBM 640 V
Clearly, 500 cutters take up far less space than 500 HSK cones, not to mention what such a magazine would cost. The software for this clever loading station was developed by Casio, and the hardware is the result of a collaboration between Yasda, System 3R and Denshi.
In all, there are currently nine automatic production cells in the mould tool workshop, and each cell has its own coordinate measuring machine.
“Without automatic production cells, we wouldn’t be so successful as we are today. Accuracy and short lead times are our main competition tools. The fact is that lead times have been cut by two-thirds thanks to the highly efficient cells”, says Kietsu Satake.
“It’s hard to find skilled people. The toolmakers of the old days are a dying breed. What counts today is precision production in high-tech machines. The solution is automation. Less ‘fingertip feel’, more programming. Craftsmanship has become high technology. Skilled older men have been replaced by well-trained programmers. This makes workshop employment more attractive to young people who have grown up in the computer age”, Kietsu Satake concludes.
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