Crisplant a/s

Crisplant a/s

Location: Hornslet - Denmark
         
Crisplant a/s (formerly FKI Logistex a/s) manufacture automated sorting systems, typically for airports (baggage handling), post offices and mail order organisations.  A large proportion of the manufactured components used are constructed from laser cut sheet metal.

They became a user of an early version of the Q-Nest software in the late 1980's. At that time the software was running on Prime hardware, and operating beside the GNC programming system to service the nesting requirements of two Behrens CNC turret punch presses with laser heads.

The system proved extremely successful, and GNC was eventually replaced with an early version of Automatic Machining running under UNIX on SUN hardware, closely integrated with the Medusa CAD system. A third machine tool was also installed. Fleming Software provided many enhancements to the system to automate the NC tape preparation process as much as possible.

Early in 1999 Crisplant upgraded to the Windows version of Automatic Machining (including Q-Nest) running on a PC under the NT4 operating system. By this time flat pattern part geometry was being received from an assortment of CAD systems, including AutoCAD and Solid Works, as well as Medusa.

The machine tools often run unattended overnight or over the weekend, with automatic sheet feed, and part unload through trap doors into collecting bins or by robot.

During  2000/2001 Fleming Software developed the "Laser Order System" for Crisplant a/s. This integrates Automatic Machining and MRP. It extracts the production orders for parts that require laser cutting directly from the database of the MRP system (originally implemented to operate with a Danish MRP system, then upgraded to integrate with the BaaN ERP system). The system will identify and track orders for parts that require programming, the transfer for nesting, nested sheet creation, running the sheets on the machine tool, marshalling of the finished items and passing to the next work centre, and feed back of the actual cycle time and operation completion to the MRP system.

One user, who also has responsibility for management of the work centre, does all the part programming, nesting, and NC tape preparation for all three machine tools. Batch sizes for a component vary from one to many thousand. Typically he will program 400 production orders per week, where many orders have multiple components, occasionally peaking at 300 new part programs per day. He generates about 50 NC programs for nested sheets per day (some of which may be run multiple times on the machine tool, and all of which may be run on any physical machine as the system simultaneously generates output for all three). Crisplant have looked at other CAM systems on the market, and have not found any that can come close to the productivity achieved by using Automatic Machining.