Machines for sheet metal
Punching or stamping? How to calculate the most efficient production system
Manufacturing a sheet metal product requires several of stages: punching and laser cutting, forming, welding and painting. A variety of technologies can be employed in each one of these phases.
This article will focus on the metal cutting process, comparing sheet metal punching and press stamping, and also calculate when it is convenient to punch a product and when to build a punching hard tool.
Here are the technologies we will compare and their main characteristics:
CNC from sheets: high flexibility, lower productivity, material waste up to 15%.
Press stamping: lower flexibility, high productivity, material waste less than 3%
CNC Punching from coils in the flexibility/productivity graph it is positioned right in the middle, and keeps material waste less than 3%
In fact, sheet fed CNC punching is usually employed where the production mix is high, with products with low quantities and materials changing continuously (small batches).
Press stamping is a good choice for mass production of a part with high quantities, and using the same material. We find less of these productions today: the market requires more customization for the products, continuous improvement of the design and smaller production batches. Here is where coil fed punching machines come in play, as I will highlight in this article.
Following these base indications, the sheet metal technologist will in most cases identify the correct processing cycle that completes the process at the lower total cost.
In other cases the choice is not so obvious, therefore comparing the total production cost is important to take the right decision and maximize profit.
Follow this link to discover more on coil fed punching lines.
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