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18 MoldMaking Technology November 2014 Case Study / Automation shop does a lot of hard milling and five-axis machining in addition to EDM. To determine whether a job will run through an automated cell, CMD evaluates the complexity of the mold components as well as the number of electrodes required. "A job requiring 50 or 60 electrodes to burn just one cav- ity, for instance, is obviously a perfect candidate, because the machine's toolchanger lacks that much capacity," Ellis explains. "Without the robots, operators would have to load the machine three different times with three different sets of electrodes. That is not running unattended, and if the machine was operating at night and needed more electrodes, it would have to sit until morning for someone to load it." Some jobs can require as many as 20 sets of electrodes, each running for 5 hours for a total processing time of 100 hours. Other jobs might require just one set of electrodes, but it might burn for 8 hours. Ellis points out that almost any job is a candidate for the automated cells, but since CMD only has two such cells, the shop picks the jobs that match up best with automation. The decision, he adds, often boils down to the jobs that will be most cost-effective if run through the cells. Growing and Evolving "Automation technology is mandatory in today's mold- building world," says Bruce Cerepak, general manager at Custom Mold & Design. "Automation allows shops to extract every hour of production possible from today's advanced, and oftentimes costly, machining technologies. While automation boosts the output of our existing workforce, it also motivates employees to work with and master higher levels of technol- ogy, attracting new customers with those higher levels of tech- nological capabilities." At the time Newkirk purchased CMD in 2003, there were only 18 employees. Today, there are more than 75 people employed by the company, which continues to grow and evolve in both revenue and advanced manufacturing technol- ogy. According to Cerepak, CMD's increased capacity puts it in position to take advantage of a shift toward more mold work being sourced to the United States. "For us to expand our customer base, we will definitely need to add more advanced automation to other processes," he adds. "Our current and future planned automation will further boost our equipment utilization and consistently improve overall business." FOR MORE INFORMATION: Custom Mold & Design / 763-535-2334 / custommold.net Erowa Technology Inc. / 800-536-4894 / erowa.com These robots provide storage for as many as 108 electrodes for nonstop EDM. Molds often require 50 or 60 electrodes to burn just one cavity. pieces of electrode graphite are clamped to a holder and then seamlessly transfer on that same holder from a graphite machining center to the Erowa robot storage unit and then into the EDM. Operators never have to unclamp, re-clamp or relocate parts to determine zero positions as parts move from one machine to the next. "The transition into automation was seamless with Erowa," says Bill Ellis, EDM manager at Custom Mold & Design. "A few of our people had previous automation experience, so once Erowa had the robots up and running, the learning curve was short. We were completely up to speed in a couple days." Making a Match CMD builds molds, mostly from tool steels, with 16 and 32 cavities, as well as single-, two-, four- and eight-cavity molds, and high-precision tooling makes for easy and precise inter- changeability. Tolerances run as tight as 0.0002 inch, and the Images courtesy of Custom Mold & Design and Creative Technology.