Largest single investment at the Albstadt site

The most recently installed CNC press brake with a pressing force of 80t now completes the production network It is the largest single investment at the site to date with a volume of 750,000 euros. What may seem less spectacular to outsiders at first glance equally ensures greater precision and efficiency in production. "With the laser punching machine, we can now, for example, cut and punch the housing base for the new locks in various backsets and directly process the parts in the material flow in the CNC press brake," explains plant manager Siegfried Weber. Throughput is higher than ever, and thanks to optical laser- and camera-based angle measuring systems and fully automatic tool changes, the machining process runs much faster than before while maintaining consistent quality. What's more, the significantly higher cutting speed reduces the running time by more than 20 percent. "Furthermore, we thereby reduce the subsequent operations and thus achieve a reduction in throughput times per production order," adds Siegfried Weber.

What's more, the production of certain parts, which had previously been outsourced to external suppliers and service providers for capacity reasons, could be brought back to the Albstadt location. Fiber laser technology enables ASSA ABLOY to manufacture the sheet metal parts for all product areas itself: from strike plates to housing of electric strikes and housing bottoms of locks - a total of over 1000 different items. In addition, and this is particularly important to Siegfried Weber, the Albstadt plant can now run production programs with many variants very economically, even in small quantities.

More automation to combat shortage of skilled workers

The quality of the workpieces speaks for itself, and there is significantly less rework. In addition, the high level of automation helps to keep manufacturing stable and produce economically in times of a shortage of skilled workers. Once the automatic loading stations of the punch-laser machine have been loaded, it operates overnight and into the weekend without personnel. "With these 'ghost shifts', we will once again significantly increase our profitability," says plant manager Weber with conviction.