“Industry 4.0” of forging operations

TEASER – Brief introduction (I) Cold forging is one of the most-widely used near-net-shape manufacturing method particularly for automotive, aerospace and white-goods industries. Cold forging is carried out with multi-stations machines, since it is not possible to give the final shape “all-in-one”. WP Station 1 Station 2 Station 3 Station 4 Station 5 A five-stations cold forging machine producing ball joints for automotive industry Courtesy: NORM Group

TEASER – Brief introduction (II) Before every production (including already-produced samples), considerable amount of resources such as raw material and time are spent for the final set-up of each station. Currently, the set-up is carried out by employing previous experience of the operators and “trial-and-error” methods. In this project, semi-automated set-up system will be designed considering the Industry 4.0 practices. The set-up system will have: An image capturing and processing unit to capture the details of all samples An algorithm that will compare the dimensions of produced samples with pre-defined tolerances and will offer new machine parameters

TEASER – Flow chart (I) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Initial set-up First trial samples Compare the first trial samples with the technical drawing Recommend a new set-up parameters Second trial samples Compare the second trial samples with the technical drawing Approval for the production 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

TEASER – Flow chart (II) Initial set-up of all stations will be done according to previous data. First samples including those from different stations will be produced. The semi-automated set-up system will capture all the dimensional features of the first trial. All the features of the samples will be compared with the pre-defined tolerances. The semi-automated system will offer new machine parameters to meet the pre-defined tolerances of the final product. Second samples including those from different stations will be produced. The semi-automated set-up system will capture all the dimensional features of the second trial. All the features of the samples will be compared with the pre-defined tolerances. If all the dimensional criteria are met, the machine will start mass-production.

Quality & Performance Award ORGANISATION PROFILE (I) NORM Group Fastener solution partner for OEM All in-house production Biggest fastener manufacturer in Turkey Sales: €230 million Markets: Automotive White goods Machine production 2014 FORD-OTOSAN Supplier of the Year Gold Star 2012-1013 TOFAS Quality & Performance Award 2011 FORD-OTOSAN Supplier of the Year Silver Star

Productivity Project Awards Large Scale Industrial ORGANISATION PROFILE (II) 5th R&D Centers Summit Metal Category Winner NORM R&D Center Numerical simulations since 2000 Completed more than 25 government-funded projects Patented products Productivity Project Awards Large Scale Industrial R&D Projects 3rd place

PROPOSAL INTRODUCTION (I) Vision: To increase the productivity of any forging-like manufacturing technologies by decreasing the set-up cost and time. Motivation: Significant amount of resources are spent for the set-up for every forging operations. This project will substantially decrease the cost of cold forging and increase efficiency in terms material, time etc. Content: The semi-automated set-up system with image capturing and processing unit (high resolution cameras or 3D-scanners) that will obtain all the dimensional features of the produced samples with adequate resolution. A new algorithm to compare the produced sample features with the pre-defined tolerances and to offer new machine parameters such as location of dies, size of punches, etc.

PROPOSAL INTRODUCTION (II) Expected outcome: A semi-automated set-up system that will be employed for all forging operations. The system will be universal, i.e. will be applicable to all forging and forging-like production lines. Impacts: The proposed system will substantially increase the productivity and will decrease the cost. The system will be easily implemented to all forging operations (hot, warm and cold) and production lines. This will be an important step to Industry 4.0 for the forging technology. Schedule: Project details, such as work packages and time schedule will be arranged with the partner(s).

PARTNERS Current Consortium: NORM Group as the Project Leader Partner search: We are looking for partner(s) having expertise on: Industry 4.0 applications Expert systems Software & algorithm development Image Processing or 3D-scannnig

CONTACT INFO Contact info: Dr. M. Burak Toparli Senior R&D Engineer NORM Group R&D Center İzmir, Turkey burak.toparli@norm-fasteners.com.tr +90 232 376 76 19 / Ext: 2214