The government having set a growth target for manufacturing to reach 25% of GDP by 2025 and looking for precision manufacturing, advanced forming, automation, nanomaterial and surface engineering among others to provide the thrust, businesses in laser applications are looking forward to opening of new opportunities.
Precision manufacturing
When it comes to quality clean edges and superior products, laser cutting has a clear advantage in the precision manufacturing industry. Accuracy is the key aspect of laser cutting that stands way ahead in comparison to the conventional methods.
Amenable for use on a variety of metals and granting advantage of flexibility, precision, repeatability, speed, cost effectiveness and high-quality contact less cutting, laser cutting is the preferred process in the industry, more so because of its automation possibilities. In particular, laser puts processes such as plasma or flame cutting way behind in terms of speed.
“Laser cutting of mid thick material up to 25mm, has many advantages when compared with conventional cutting methods. Apart from higher productivity, we can achieve less taper across thickness which eliminates secondary machining process,” says Niraj Seth, President, Amada India, a company with 70 years in the development of metal working machinery behind it. Besides, the usage of laser technology itself is developing for better. The shortcomings of the earlier CO2 based laser has been overcome with the use of fiber laser technology. This has brought about a substantial improvement in energy efficiency and speed along with reduction in the cost of production.
“Fiber laser has very fine kerf width which improve material utilisation and subsequently reduces cost of production,” adds Seth, pointing to the many advantages of laser cutting. Among other advantages of laser cutting is the cost effectiveness due to elimination of the need to replace tools for each cut. Within the same set-up, a variety of forms can be cut ensuing flexibility in each and every application. Moreover, the nesting software in laser cutting systems helps prevention of wastage the way it is not feasible with traditional cutting programmers.
Adopting automation
Automation is widely believed in the industry to be a pre-requisite for truly reaping the benefit of laser cutting technology but is grappling with the challenges adopting it. Maulik Patel- Executive Director, SLTL Group, says “The laser cutting in itself is a highly productive solution but equipping it with automation is just like the icing on a cake. Automation increases the productivity of any machine manyfold by providing a solution to minimize errors and work more efficiently.”
As a result, there is an increasing shift in the industry towards using lasers provided with automation of one kind or the other. This trend is likely to increase with the companies bringing themselves to invest in capacity-building as the demands in the economy surge.
However, though a few players have been quick to respond to the technology, the industry is still seen to be somewhat lacking in adopting it. “The choice to automate is usually driven by a complicated mix of factors rather than a single cause and heavy investment involved in upgrading and automating is one among them,” explains SLTL Executive Director whose group’s systems are equipped with industry 4.0, IoT and with smart factory manufacturing aimed at meeting the customer’s futuristic requirement.
Difficulties in migrating from legacy systems to more automated one and the fear of impeding job creation and employment in the industry are some of the other challenges before the industry apart from perceived longer time for amortisation of investment. Different companies are responding in their own different ways to these challenges. At Amada for instance, there is an introduction of customised automation suitable for emerging markets like India for blanking and bending process. The customer can expect to see a healthier bottom-line with the adoption of these processes along with high-speed, energy saving technology of fiber laser and servo-controlled machineries.
Pandemic effects
The lockdowns have had a huge impact not only on laser cutting but also on the entire cutting tool industry. With the restrictions levied on the use of industrial oxygen in order to meet health-care needs, the industry came to a grinding halt for a few months. However, some of the enterprising ones managed to keep the machines running with the use of different assistant gases; albeit the application lacked the quality and precision in several areas.
Amada, for example, used technology called EZ, which uses air as assist gas. Remote supervision and instructions; training and skilling were done using webinars by many companies. Online meetings and live demonstrations were conducted in the absence of customers inability to visit physically. Automation, technologies and IoT helped.
“With the help of our laser experts, we were able to guide fabricators and clients through live webinars, the process of gaining a handle on their job and achieving the desired productivity,” says Patel, whose SLTL group is known for its passion for innovation excellence.
“Being leader in this field, we felt big responsibility to support our users in this difficult time. Our technical support team at Amada India has conducted series of webinar on how to utilize laser machine in absence of O2 as assist gas,” says Seth in a similar vain.
Drivers and prospects
Unlike perception in certain quarters, emission regulations and safety demands, e-vehicles or lighter vehicles hasn’t affected the cutting tool industry.
“We are yet to see any direct negative impact of new emission regulations and stringent safety demands on supply of laser cutting machines,” says Seth with authority.
On the contrary, to make the cars lighter, manufacturing applications in automobile sector has shifted to new dimension in laser application. Cutting, welding, marking, hardening and cladding are all common laser applications being adopted by the automotive industry for making futuristic lightweight vehicles and EVs. If anything, the regulations have positively affected the laser cutting tool industry.
“India’s largest automobile makers are now constructing battery plants, and other industries will follow suit. For accurate results and precise cut quality, automobile manufacturers are already turning to laser technology to achieve the needed production output,” explains Patel.
Besides automotive, laser cutting is a material cutting technique that is a critical in manufacturing complicated components for industries such as the machine tool industry, heavy industry, infrastructure, electronics, consumer durables, railways and aerospace, utensil and kitchenware, agriculture industries, fitness equipment industry, furniture, food and beverages, escalator and elevator industry, duct and HVAC, electric panel and others.
“By sector, the demand for high power laser with higher efficiency and cutting-edge technology is growing in construction, infrastructure, railways, telecom, medical and healthcare,” says Seth emphasising the growth prospects for laser cutting.
The headway
Companies are sizing up the progress and responding with constant developments in tools and applications. At SLTL for example, a team of laser experts have specifically designed a 5-axis laser cutting machine – Arm X5, for the automotive industry to help them meet their requirement of precision in each and every cut result. Also, they have designed a Robotic Cell – Fibo for the 3d applications (laser oxygen cutting as per google) which is yet another suitable option for the industry.
Amada’s Locus Beam Control (LBC) can achieve infinite locus patterns — ensuring optimum fiber laser beam shape control for each specific cutting application. LBC technology achieves unprecedented high speed and high-quality cutting — up to 3 times faster than a conventional fiber laser, the company claims.
“Over the previous few decades, the laser cutting industry has gone through various stages of advancement in cutting material, quality and thickness, power, and efficiency. As a result, today’s laser cutting machines have faster and better cutting speeds, the ability to cut thin and thick metals, and the ability to pro cess steel and aluminium on the same machine,” says Patel citing the bright prospects for laser cutting material, quality and thickness, power, and efficiency. As a result, today’s laser cutting machines have faster and better cutting speeds, the ability to cut thin and thick metals, and the ability to process steel and aluminium on the same machine,” says Patel citing the bright prospects for laser cutting.