Setting the course for high precision

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industrial

Setting the course for high precision

Fifteen years ago, AMMANN AG changed its strategic business orientation: a contract manufacturer for machined switch and track parts became AMMANN Components, a system supplier specialising in complex, high-precision workpieces. Success and growth soon set in - thanks to the encouraged employees and their expertise as well as the high-quality machinery, which is dominated by several Heckert compact machines. The Swiss precision machinists are expecting a further boost from the recently delivered Heckert H75.

The Ammann family has been involved in blacksmithing and locksmithery since 1732. In 1860, Conrad Ammann founded the first company in the Swiss town of Tägerwilen, a locksmith’s shop with four to six employees that mass-produced wooden drills and agricultural and forestry equipment. This set the foundation for the company, which has now been based in Tägerwilen for eight generations. Throughout this long tradition, the last 40 years have been particularly exciting.

At the beginning of this period, the company, which at the time specialised in forged parts, entered into a close partnership with an engineering office for switch and track technology. A business that developed spectacularly. Innovative ideas were formed by the AMMANN production team. The forging of fastening elements was increasingly accompanied by the machining of cast blanks.

AMMANN invested. In addition to the first four-axis Heckert machining centre purchased in the early 1990s, it was primarily the two Heckert CWK630 machines purchased in 1999 that met the growing demand for milling capacity.

Markus Halder, who joined the AMMANN production team in 1999 as a prospective engineer, remembers: “With these extremely stable machining centres, we were able to drive through the cast blanks at high feed rates and remove up to 4 mm of chips.

This ensured short processing times and ultimately economical operation.” In order to further increase machining capacities, those responsible invested in a further Starrag machine and, in 2006, the first Heckert HEC 500 entered production.

Precision machining of large parts

AMMANN Components was able to establish itself and position itself broadly in various sectors with its “new” strategic offer. “In retrospect, our decision to undertake this strategic realignment was exactly the right thing to get our company back on track for success,” Paul Ammann is certain. “Our customers appreciate the added value we offer them by developing suitable machining processes for their workpieces based on our equipment. As a result, we have grown from 22 to over 50 employees in the last 15 years and continue to be in an expansion phase.”

In order to cope with the increase in orders, the company continuously invests in further Heckert compact machines. Since 2017, for example, a Heckert HEC 500 F has been part of the machinery, predominantly for milling aluminium alloys. The Heckert HEC 500 Athletics purchased in 2019 and 2020 will be used for heavy machining.

“These high-precision, compact machining centres are of significant importance to us,” emphasises company boss Ammann. “Not only do they ensure we meet all component quality requirements, they also give us a high degree of flexibility in terms of workpieces.” After all, no order involves large-scale production. “In our niche, we tend to handle small and medium batch sizes, but they are recurring and have overall project durations of between 5 and 20 years or even longer.”

New compact series for increased process reliability

Amongst the 4-axis centres, the Starrag machines always came out on top.

The successor model to the successful Heckert HEC 500 comes with various improvements and promising options. Paul Ammann decided to have the Heckert H75 equipped with preparatory cooling in the set-up room, for example: “Since we don’t have an air-conditioned hall, flushing with coolant is a big advantage. This tempers the parts in such a way that there is hardly any difference from the machining temperature and the component is not subjected to any stress.”

This has impressed the production team from day one. The machine is used to machine large aluminium gearbox housings for which the customer specifies centre distances with a narrow tolerance. Aluminium in particular reacts sensitively to temperature differences. Every degree means an expansion of 0.02 mm for this gearbox housing.

Paul Ammann is also enthusiastic about the spindle with its maximum torque of 950 Nm and a speed of up to 12,500 rpm. This makes the BAZ equally suitable for aluminium and heavy machining, i.e. for a wide range of components. In order to maximise flexibility and keep set-up times to a minimum, the Heckert H75 was equipped with large tool storage. With its four coupled towers, the tower magazine has capacity for almost 400 tools.

Sabine Kerstan

Starrag Content Manager

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