Smart solutions for ecological sustainability

Developing more sustainable machine tools is just one facet of GF Machining Solutions’ membership in the European Association of Machine Tool Industries (CECIMO) Blue Competence Machine Tool sustainability initiative.

As a Blue Competence Machine Tools member, GF Machining Solutions has declared its willingness to quantify the sustainability of its products and to maintain management systems that set and monitoring sustainability objectives, including continuously process improvement. To be accepted as a member of the initiative, the GF Division was required to define sustain-ability objectives and actions for its products and personnel, apply sustainability criteria to every phase of a product’s life cycle, and provide product documentation describing resource-conserving operational aspects, and ensure its products’ resource efficiency.

Blue Competence Machine Tool members must also create concepts for professional and proper disposal of products at the end of their period of use, and members’ service offerings must include professional energy/resource conservation during products day-to-day use. From world-class electrical discharge machines (EDM), Laser texturing and Additive Manufacturing through to first-class Milling and Spindles, Tooling, Automation and software systems—all backed by efficiency-boosting Customer Services solutions—GF Machining Solutions con-tinuously innovates to ensure customers’ energy efficiency without compromising productivity.

Thanks to GF Machining Solutions’ products, process expertise, and customized planning, customers can reduce their energy consumption by 20 percent during machines’ idle time, and EXPERT systems are available to help customers determine the best strategies for achieving the best ecological balance with their machines. Examples include clean filtration systems with automatic particle separation, separation of chips and cutting fluid, reduction of compressed air consumption, and adaptation of the power of the machine pump according to customers’ needs in terms of filtration, cooling and flushing.

At the same time, GF Machining Solutions is engineering ecological sustainability into the DNA of its products to reduce energy consumption, boost energy efficiency, analyze energy waste and self-adapt to optimize energy use, and using high-tech tools like Customer Services’ rConnect remote monitoring platform to reduce in-person service interventions and the resulting air and car travel-induced pollution.

Across GF Machining Solutions’ full range of AgieCharmilles, Microlution, Mikron Mill, Liechti, Step-Tec and System 3R technologies, customers can raise their game, increase their com-petitiveness and work toward greater ecological sustainability. That is because GF Machining Solutions is relentless in its effort to improve the sustainability of its technologies.

For example, a new Mikron Mill machine can reduce a customer’s CO₂ emissions by 4,000 kg per year, and the efficient injector for oil extraction on an AgieCharmilles EDM machine uses 57 percent less compressed air. All GF Machining Solutions machines use LED bulbs for workspace light and signal lamps, so customers conserve electricity.

That commitment includes the evolution of mature technologies toward “greener” perfor-mance, and introduction of extremely environmentally-friendly newer technologies like Laser texturing and Additive Manufacturing.

Laser technology, for instance, uses a Laser to texture molds and replaces conventional and polluting processes like chemical etching, which uses acid and other pollutants. In contrast to other processes, Laser texturing requires no cutting tools, so materials are saved, too.

That’s sustainability customers can actually measure, and proof of GF Machining Solutions’ ongoing commitment to helping customers achieve ecological sustainability while maintaining highest accuracy, precision and productivity.