The fasteners industry and the wire 2010 trade fair

Bolted together: The fasteners industry and the wire 2010 trade fair. Press release wire 2010. The consequences on a car journey can be catastrophic if a wheel nut or bolt becomes detached, if a connecting rod breaks or if a cylinder head screw gives way. Screws, nuts, rivets, nails and pins are fasteners that don’t usually attract much attention, yet they are vital for the assembly and functioning of technical systems. Other elements of the wire and wire-processing industry are cables (incl. steel cables), springs and bent parts. wire 2010, the leading trade fair for the international wire and cable industry, will be held at the Düsseldorf Exhibition Centre from 12 to 16 April, with plenty of opportunities to learn about the latest developments in motorised lathes and the resulting forward-looking manufacturing methods. Fasteners The best-known fasteners are undoubtedly screws. A screw is a cylindrical piece of wire that contains an external thread, with a T-shaped head at one end, protruding above the cylinder shaft. The purpose of a screw is to connect components. To do so, it is turned – or driven – into a drilled counterpart that has a matching internal thread. The head of the screw serves as the point of contact for a screwdriver, while its lower side provides a bearing surface on the component into which it is driven. When a screw is driven in, this creates a “force-fitted” clamped connection which can be detached by means of a tool. On the other hand, a rivet – also made from wire – forms a “form-fitted” connection that cannot be detached without causing destruction. Manufacturing through cold forging The starting material for most metallic fasteners is wire made from certain steels (cold-headed steels), copper and aluminium alloys or other non-ferrous metals. The blank is usually cold-forged on a multi-station press, i.e. it is made without additional heat. The wire is delivered in the form of coils which are straightened upon being fed into the machine. Next, the wire is cut into certain lengths which are taken to the forming tool. Each length runs through a series of forming stations, so that it gradually receives its final shape. Next, the thread is rolled onto the wire by a thread-rolling machine. The manufacturing process often includes thermal treatment that serves to produce specific properties in the screws. Depending on the diameter and length of the screws, the output of a screw press can be 300 items per minute or more. Technical benefits Formed parts have a certain structure that gives them a high level of resistance to dynamic and static strain. This is why vehicle components with safety requirements are made as formed parts. Moreover, they have a clear cost benefit: The German trade magazine Umformtechnik (Forming Technology) reports that the cold-forging of parts leads to 80% cost savings compared with metal cutting processes. These benefits are also exploited by NME National Machinery Europe, the European subsidiary of the international manufacturers of metal forming machines, National Machinery LLC: “Complementing our new machinery business and our customer service, we have now launched a number of further operations,” says NME regional sales manager Harald Rödl: “Our most recent division – entitled MET MAX Innovations – shows companies from a variety of different industries how much money can potentially be saved if conventional manufacturing methods are replaced by innovative metal forming processes. As well as the required process expertise and creativity, we also have a range of metal forming presses with specifications that far exceed the conventional type, thus enabling us to set up innovative processes – not just theoretically but in a way that ensures their practical roll-out on an industrial scale. The response we have received so far indicates that there is a considerable amount of potential. We also provide a wide range of services in the area of pre-owned machinery – services that go much further than anything that is normally offered by second-hand equipment dealers. Ranging from agency services between buyers and sellers, through skilled and properly recorded inspections to partial or full OEM overhauls, we are now in a position to offer the full service spectrum that is so vital for a responsible and reliable trade in second-hand machinery. Increasingly complex requirements The requirements on fasteners with regard to shapes, properties, tolerances, quality and of course reliability are becoming more and more sophisticated. At the same time, we can see a tendency towards smaller batch sizes and shorter terms of delivery, a trend that clearly makes it even more difficult to plan and exploit one’s manufacturing capacities. Cost pressure and competitive pressure are both very high, especially as most medium-sized manufacturers of fasteners are acutely dependent on the automotive industry. A market study by the Freedonia Group, published in the trade magazine Wire Journal International in December 2009, showed that in 2008, the biggest industry to receive supplies was the automotive sector (29.0%), followed by machinery (25.2%), aerospace (13.9%), fabricated metals (13.5%) and electrical/electronic (9.6%). The sharp decline in durable goods, which resulted from the recession, necessarily also impacted manufacturers of fasteners in 2009, when it led to a drastic slump in sales in this sector. The situation is further aggravated by growing competition from East Asia, fuelled by countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. An integrated approach and flexible manufacturing Brendan Eyre, the author of the above-mentioned study, believes that a competitive edge is almost impossible to achieve if a company aims for a secure position with low item prices for standard products on the mass market while at the same time envisaging the same on the market for complex application-specific parts, as this would involve a different mindset and different management methods. Nevertheless, this option is worth considering. Whether it is mass manufacturing or fully customised production, requirements are getting increasingly complex, and to master such needs it is vital for a company to have more flexible machinery that allows the cost-effective production of a variety of parts in different batch sizes, including very small ones. Well-known machine manufacturers are using wire 2010 as a platform to present their global innovations. At the same time, they have always pursued a much wider and increasingly detailed policy. This policy includes an after-sales service that helps customers make full use of their machine capacities, keeping operating and servicing expenses as low as possible while using their machines in a variety of ways and ensuring that they can be adapted and upgraded at any time. After all, technological leadership can only be sustained if both parties – machine manufacturers and users – are, as it were, bolted together. wire 2010 According to the brochure “Wire for the Future”, issued by the Steel Information Centre in Düsseldorf, “half the world is kept together by screws and other fasteners”. Virtually all spheres of life require these and other cold-forged parts, while the requirements on such parts are continually rising. Moreover, as their potential qualities are far from exhausted, manufacturers of fasteners are continually facing new challenges. wire 2010, the leading international trade fair for the wire, cable and cable-processing industry, provides information about forward-looking manufacturing methods. Visitors will also experience synergy effects from the parallel trade fair – Tube – which will be held at the same time as wire.