Reducing Manufacturing Costs in Metal Stamping Processes

Metal stamping uses precisely designed dies and pressure to stamp sheets into complicated and simple metal forms. This process can create different types of products and components. It encompasses a wide range of certain techniques, like:

  • Bending
  • Blanking
  • Piercing
  • Punching
  • Metal Stamping

Bending

This process use dies with shallow-angled edges to shape a cut piece of metal sheet.

Blanking

It is a shearing process that uses a pressing machine and dies to cut out shapes from sheets. These cut-out materials are called blanks. It is kept for use while the rest of the material’s lattice is scrapped.

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Piercing

Just like blanking, a press machine and die shear shapes out of sheets. With the piercing process, the material left behind is the final result, and the cut-out part is the scrap.

Punching

This technique uses a punch to put a hole into the sheet. The material rests on the die that holds the sheet so that edges surrounding the hole do not break.

This method is considered a very cost-effective manufacturing method if people choose the suitable methodology and equipment throughout the manufacturing stages and design. In this article, we will take a closer look at some important aspects of this industry.

Equipment

Using the right stamping tool can dramatically impact the total time and cost of the manufacturing process. Progressive die and four-slide devices offer an excellent way to achieve a high-volume production.

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Four-slide devices

This machine creates bends and curves in the material. It is capable of making multiple bends, each one with a radius of more than ninety degrees but without sharp folds or bends. Four-slide devices are usually used to make intricate shapes from coils.

This machine handles almost a simultaneous operation. It has four shafts across its bevel gears that can quickly perform various processes. Its shafts have slides that handle, striking tools and four-slide tools that strike from unique directions (orthogonal horizontal) to create rounded forms. This motion repeats depending on the design to create repetitive and precise forms.

This manufacturing process can be customized to require secondary processing steps, pieces of the machine, and more or less handling depending on the particular final product. This kind of technique is usually cheaper compared to other stamping techniques.

Progressive die or conventional punch press stamping devices

On the other hand, progressive dies or conventional punch press stamping are manufacturing processes that carry work pieces through different stations to make final products. Every workstation handles a particular series of work piece functions while still attached to the stock strip. At the last station, the last operational cuts pieces away from stops. Stations used these devices to process raw materials depending on strict design requirements. Automation is usually implemented to make it more cost- and time-effectively, as well as making sure high repeatability rates. The dies used can handle some secondary and all primary manufacturing operations. This manufacturing method minimizes the number of separate steps to take work pieces from sheets to finished pieces.

Material optimization

One of the most effective and efficient ways to minimize the production cost is by minimizing wasted materials.

Strip layout

This process takes a lot of planning. Designers carefully determine the order and nature of every stamping operation, the medium needed, as well as the processing that happens in every progressive metal stamping workstation. The planning lets the company choose the right amount of medium, know the costs up front, and make a precise decision without allowing for a significant margin of error.

Usually, this method has more than a 75% utilization rate for work materials. The ordering and position processes are tested to make sure that the most efficient and effective order of machining processes and operations are used.

Material reduction

Modifying designs to take out excess materials can drastically minimize the cost of materials in a given project. It is usually possible to adjust the usage of materials by reorienting how parts are laid out on raw sheets. Common techniques include:

Combining related components with various dimensions onto the same metal sheet layout

Laying out big series of components like complex puzzle pieces instead of solitary strips

Shifting pieces closer together

Even if the adjustment only generates a particular space for one additional piece for every ten, that is a ten percent increase in effectiveness and efficiency. Choosing the right technology can also minimize the wastage of materials. Four-slide devices use mediums efficiently compared to direct stamping techniques.

It is because these techniques like blanking and piercing rely on the existence of an additional medium that dies can punch through. A four-slide process can work with a medium that is already at the desired width and height of the final result.