Merging servo-systems in sheet metal industry

(L-R) Patrick Wang, President, Jen- Shiung Wang, Chairman

Heading towards becoming a leading manufacturer of hydraulic presses, Lien Chieh Machinery (LCM) aims to promote its latest production line – servo mechanical tandem line. Proudly celebrating its 70^th anniversary, LCM is fostering an industrial direction that connects the future of metal forming technology in different industries.

As one of the most senior press manufacturers in Taiwan, LCM claims 2017 as a year of changes - redefining the concept of metal forming, and targets its next goals and endeavours to meet the future of advanced manufacturing.

INTERNATIONAL METALWORKING NEWS FOR ASIA (IMNA) talked to LCM President Patrick Wang, the third generation of the company’s founding father, to acquire an in-depth understanding to the advanced hydraulic systems that LCM offers. IMNA also asked Patrick Wang to share the company’s prospects amidst its 70^th anniversary.

LCM’s history and its main focus today

According to Patrick Wang, LCM was founded in 1947, our expertise is in developing hydraulic presses and related technological innovations. In the early days of LCM’s establishment, the company manufactured basic hydraulic equipment (e.g. table lifters for plywood), and later turned its direction in exploring hot forming technology. Today, the specification of LCM’s hydraulic presses have extended its emphasis, and transformed the traditional metal forming techniques for higher level performances – especially in hydroforming and deep drawing. The involvement of LCM’s presses in modern industries are wide-spread, the company has been supplying sectors including automotive, energy, electronics, home appliances, construction, composite materials, military, green transportation and top industrial labs for major breakthroughs.

A global outlook

As a senior manufacturer, LCM witnessed the altering tides of the sheet metal forming industry, decades of hand-on experiences cultivated LCM’s ability in sensing the current trend and notice the insufficiency in the industry. Patrick Wang told us that it is the company’s strength in filling the gaps between users’ ever stricter production standard and the performances of press facility. ‘LCM has lived through seven decades of global metal forming development, the company thus experienced different phases of changes in this industry. In short, the identity of hydraulic press manufacturers keep transforming – from the early days of high labour reliance, large energy consumption and relatively higher environmental cost to a revolutionised industry today. “We nowadays concentrate in building energy efficient, automated and eco-friendly presses”, he said. 

Contributing to LCM’s sophistication in understanding industrial characteristics of different countries, the company emphasises on their strong global outlook, which is sufficient to satisfy different customer structures based on LCM’s mechanical engineering adaptability. LCM’s international service centres are set up across continents. From 2017 onwards, LCM aims to hoist the sales and services in the Asian region – Russia, India, Japan and Southeast Asia will be LCM’s latest prospect markets for introducing servo mechanical tandem line.

Having opened its Thailand branch in 2015, LCM received a significant growth of 60-70%. The performance implies bountiful potential in Southeast Asian countries. After a break-down of the buyers structure, Patrick Wang estimated that the next market for drastic automotive growth outside China is situated in Southeast Asia – over 70% of their customers are automotive manufacturers; while electronics and plywood industries share the remaining 20-30% customers. With the resourceful service centres, LCM can respond to customers instantly regardless of distant or time differences.  

LCM holds a positive outlook for 2017, at the beginning of this year, the orders have already achieved half-full of the company’s total capacity. LCM views it as a promising year for global sheet metal formers and fabricators.

Reaching for the next 70 years: automation, eco-friendly, versatility

The highlight for LCM this year is its latest release - servo mechanical tandem line (2400-1000 ton). ‘We are the first to develop this line on the island’, Patrick Wang remarked. He stressed that the production line is designed in accordance to meet the most advanced technology facilitated for press industry. The production line enables producers to enjoy on one hand the high speed generated from mechanical presses, and on the other, the energy-efficiency from the servo-hydraulic presses. In addition, the reason for equipping the production line with servo system is that it helps producers in simulating productions under different circumstances, which fundamentally benefits the users who need diversifying modular for cross-industrial productions. Under operational tests, the servo mechanical tandem line can increase the SPM from 18-20 to 30-40 times thanks to its highly automated system. It therefore raises productivity radically. “In achieving greater efficiency, versatility and precision, LCM’s production line broadens the potentiality of users to win more contracts as it fulfils wide industrial requests and matches different specifications”, Patrick Wang stressed.

In the first 70 years of LCM’s operation, it has achieved several milestones as a hydraulic press manufacturer. The progression in the field of presses showed that metal forming can move toward a zero-pollution industry. The main objectives of LCM for the next decades are therefore to boost the development in servo hydraulic presses and mechanical presses as it shall become the indispensable equipment for supplying growing demands in high-tech and the future industry.

More connected and intelligent than ever

The aspiration for LCM in the next phase is in levelling up new-generation hydraulic presses. In Patrick Wang’s word “Our goal from 2017-2020 is to materialise more concepts that would contribute to stronger performance servo mechanical presses,” he said. The existing servo mechanical tandem line has made huge process improvements in hot stamping press technology as well as power units. Issues such as reducing the cycle time spent making components, and eradicating extra energy loss have already been tackled, and in the future, the servo operating system will be responsible of accurate communication between machines and operators – truly transforming sheet metal forming industry into an intelligent and accessible industry. In order to produce cleverly, global manufacturers are choosing intelligent equipment to help them stay at the top of the competition. In terms of value, LCM is proud to ensure that the products machined by their presses have extremely high mechanical strength properties of the metal, which is prerequisite for high-end automotive manufacturing or high tech (PCB) industries. LCM has a very high profile to the development of PCB industry in Taiwan as the country emerged to become a high-tech concentrated island. It has supplied the industry with PCB laminator machines, multilayer lamination machines and so on.

“I believe that over the next few years, enhanced technologies in forging, hot forming will be introduced by our R&D team. LCM’s engineering expertise is eternally broadening its capacity to serve for more industries”, Patrick Wang emphasised. Through celebrating its 70th anniversary, LCM wishes to reconnect with old and new customers across their global service centres, and bring excellence to the industry –with unbeatable servo mechanical presses and instant services. With the same spirit passed down through the first and second generation managers, LCM will carry the mechanical excellence and technological dedication and fare into the future.