As the stand-alone, product-dedicated press becomes more obsolete, workcells and assembly lines with integrated presses are becoming more flexible and productive
Load cells and sensors used with presses measure several key variables, such as ram force, distance and time, and help ensure they stay within allowable tolerances. Too bad these technologies can’t also measure a press’s reaction to its changing role in manufacturing: Increasingly being integrated with one or more assembly systems, rather than operating as a stand-alone machine dedicated to continually joining one type of part.
“We’ve always used sensors in our servo presses to try and give them feeling, so to speak,” says Glenn Nausley, president of Promess Inc., which has made servo presses since 1994. “The use of servo presses in general has ramped up considerably in recent years, and one of the main reasons is because they’re fairly easy to integrate into assembly systems.”