The future of commercial vehicle production lies in being faster, more energy efficient and more flexible
The market for commercial vehicles is experiencing a lively development. For example, emerging economies have a great need for new technologies in the production of HGVs or agricultural machines, to enable them to achieve the desired growth in construction industry and agriculture. At the same time, competition is heating up. New manufacturers from, for instance, China intensify the price war. Against this kind of background today’s production planners are coming under considerable pressure. The future of commercial vehicle production lies in being faster, more energy efficient and more flexible. For the turning experts at Emag these are very familiar conditions. With their vertical pick-up turning machine VL 8 for work-pieces of up to 400mm diameter they offer a highly efficient solution for the production of commercial vehicle components.
Large vehicles mean large constituent components. This is the simplest way to describe commercial vehicle production. However, the manufacturing of especially large and heavy components (for instance for the powertrain of HGVs, earthmovers or buses) poses a particular set of questions. How can a large clamped component be machined economically and, at the same time, at the highest precision? Does the demanding work-handling of such components not result in endlessly long production processes? The vertical pick-up turning machine VL 8 from Emag provides the answer.
The machine builders at Emag have transferred all the advantages of their VL series directly to a machine specially designed for the handling of large components, where a number of different turning and milling operations are carried out within the framework of a single close-loop production process, with integrated automation providing the speed required and a vertical layout ensuring a high degree of process integrity where chip flow causes no problem. The results achieved with this design often become apparent within a very short time. Subcontractors and component suppliers benefit from short idle times, high component quality and sinking unit costs. The VL 8 is rapidly becoming a true ‘cost-killer’ in the production of commercial vehicles.
The basic design of the VL 8 closely follows that of the successful VL series. Sturdy machine construction, dynamic axes and simple operation are the main characteristics of these machines. They are also based on a completely new machine concept that allows for a variety of production technologies for soft and hard machining to be combinedto achieve a very attractive price-performance ratio.