More than 40 men and women from the Association of German Precision Tool Grinders (FDPW) accepted the invitation to this year's FDPW information trip and were able to take a look behind the scenes of two modern high-tech companies at the precision tool manufacturer Schwanog in Obereschach and here at Haas Schleifmaschinen in Trossingen on 23 and 24 October 2015.

"The best education," Goethe once wrote, "a clever man finds on his travels." The participants of this year's FDPW information trip seemed to have this striking sentence in their luggage when they opened their already traditional autumn tour on Friday, 25 October 2015 in Villingen-Schwenningen with a visit to our customer, the precision tool manufacturer Schwanog (Siegfried Güntert GmbH).

Competitive in a high-wage country

Managing Director Clemens Güntert explained in an exciting lecture how precise cutting tools can be manufactured at absolutely competitive prices in the high-wage country of Germany. More than 400,000 profiles for form indexable inserts and parting inserts can be called up and produced at Schwanog. "The usual batch sizes that our customers order are between three and 50 profile inserts," says Clemens Güntert. "With more than 10,000 individual orders per year, we focus on the optimally organized production process. Everyone can put up a modern machine park, the know-how for Schwanog's success lies in the process and in the quality!

Founded in 1946 by grandfather Oscar Güntert, Schwanog has concentrated exclusively on the production of high-precision cutting tools since 1997. The focus is on profile plates. More than 100 qualified specialists at the headquarters in Obereschach and in subsidiaries in the USA, France and China ensure that every customer gets exactly the tool he needs.

Industry 4.0? Schwanog already everyday life

When asked about the keyword Industry 4.0, the company owner smiles mischievously: "Networked manufacturing has long been part of our everyday lives. Otherwise we could never manufacture economically from batch size 1. We have a continuous data flow from incoming orders to design, control of our machines and order invoicing". While industrial 4.0 task forces are springing up everywhere, Schwanog's machines have been talking to each other for a long time.

The FDPW members were visibly impressed by the process-oriented production, but also by the openness with which Clemens Güntert informed his guests. The professional impression continued during the tour of the plant. The heart of Schwanog production is the ultra-modern tool grinding shop, where around 20 partly fully automated 5-axis CNC grinding machines from Haas Schleifmaschinen as well as various eroding and milling machines ensure precision and productivity in production.
 

People, Software, Machines

In the concluding discussion at the Schwanog Conference Centre, company boss Güntert was very happy to provide information on the technical and organisational questions of the FDPW members. He emphasized three aspects in particular, without which Schwanog would not be so successful, especially in competition with Asian companies: "In addition to excellent hardware, i.e. grinding and eroding machines, efficient production depends above all on the software. This ranges from the grinding and control software to our ERP systems, which are supplied with the required production data by our machine controls." And then, Güntert emphasizes, "there are our employees, whom we nurture and care for. What use is the best grinding machine to us if the tool grinder doesn't know how to get the most out of the machine?

Getting good people is not easy, even for a top company like Schwanog, which is why the company invests a lot in training and further education. The importance that management attaches to cultivating team spirit is also demonstrated by numerous activities outside the workplace. For example, you go jogging, skiing, to the Fasnet or even go on a trip to Europapark.

FDPW visits Haas Schleifmaschinen

After the FDPW members had seen on the first day of their info trip how precision tools can be produced economically with modern CNC grinding machines, they could get an idea on Saturday of how and where these grinding machines are developed and built. Just 14 kilometres from Schwanog's headquarters we are building our Multigrind® grinding centres at Haas.

Machine for tool grinder

In the Adelbert-Haas-Straße in Trossingen, we produce around 80 Multigrind® grinding machines per year on an area of 5,000 m². The latest development, the compact grinding centre Multigrind® CU, is aimed specifically at manufacturers of precision tools for machining. Due to the small footprint and the closed side surfaces, the Multigrind® CU can also be set up in series as a production line. This should in turn be of interest to volume manufacturers of cutting tools.

Our medium-sized machine, the Multigrind® CA, is also predestined for manufacturers of components for the medical technology, energy and aerospace industries. The flagship of the family, the Multigrind® CB, is mainly found among manufacturers of implants, medical tools, turbine components, hobs and gear parts.

Precision needs software

"If you want to grind precisely and economically, you not only need a good grinding machine, but also powerful, yet easy-to-use grinding software," says Thomas Bader in his introductory speech. We have therefore decided to develop our own, completely new and geometriebasierte grinding software.

Our grinding software Multigrind® Horizon was introduced at the GrindTec in 2012. The software now runs on all Multigrind® grinding machines and, with very few exceptions, can be used for all applications. By the way, the performance of this software has spread not only among our customers, but also among other grinding machine manufacturers. Our software boss Wolfram Hermle explained to the FDPW members exactly what the Multigrind® Horizon is all about.

Dense program
Of course, we put all our efforts into the FDPW and created a substantial program. We offered: a lecture on grinding software, a presentation on clamping technology, grinding demonstrations on the machine as well as the possibility to get an explanation of intermittent flow production. The focus of our work is always the suitable grinding process, which our engineers and technicians develop and implement with our modular machines, the grinding software and our technological know-how.

For us as manufacturers of grinding machines, such visits are extremely stimulating, because we can take many suggestions with us from the numerous discussions with the grinding professionals of the FDPW. The morning was over in no time and our guests had to get on the bus again.

All in all, the FDPW-Inforeise 2015 organised by Sabine Saxler was a very exciting event, which also had cultural highlights in the form of a city tour through historic Villingen and a hike through the Schwenninger Moos. As we have heard, suggestions for possible destinations for the FDPW Inforeise 2016 can now be submitted: info(at)fdpw(dot)de

We would like to thank our guests from the FDPW for their interest and the good, stimulating discussions in a relaxed Saturday morning atmosphere. You don't get that every day.

Dirk Wember and Thomas Bader