What is the cost of retooling a press brake?
More often than not, time dedicated to tooling setup is not considered when determining production costs. Actually, changing punches and tool adapters can easily take up to several minutes. With shrinking batch sizes, maximizing active bending time becomes more and more important to keep non-productive activities to a minimum.
Press brakes are expensive pieces of machinery, and press brake operators are skilled, experienced workers. Time of both the machine and the operator must be valued for what they’re best at: bending sheet metal. All the rest is just inefficiencies that must be cut as much as possible.
How to calculate the cost savings of modern clamping solutions
With this online calculator, you will be able to determine the saving in terms of time and money that can be achieved by switching from manual screw clamping to quicker and more ergonomic alternatives, such as:
- Toolever quick lever clamping
- Gasparini air-powered clamping
- AirSlide sliding tool adapters
- Hydraulic clamping
These solutions can often reduce tool setup times by 75%, i.e. a 4:1 ratio.
