Fagor Arrasate successfully showed its innovative technology at the annual meeting of AZL members

Fagor Arrasate has been a member of AZL for 3 years, and has extended their partnership for another 3 years.

Fagor Arrasate had an important role at the last annual meeting of AZL members with a conference where they explained their offer of high production lines for the SMC process which had a large repercussion among the 130 representatives from over 80 associated companies from 21 countries and 9 associated institutes attending the event.

The 4th annual meeting of this association founded in 2012 as a service supplier associated to companies in the lightweight technologies field was held at its HQ in Aachen, Germany on 21st and 22nd June, where several projects which had been launched were reviewed. They also tackled future topics of collaboration and identified the latest trends to lighten the weight of automotive and other sector components.

The Business Unit Manager of Fagor Arrasate, Estibalitz Arregi, gave a conference in the first of the 2 sessions where she showed the high production lines for SMC with turnkey solutions enabling exponential productivity increase. Arregi stressed the co-operative had made the technological leap to offer an automated solution which increases productivity and reduces many downtimes and end improves cost of the parts.

She presented more specifically an SMC slitter and a hydraulic press, which work automatically in a robotic cell. Among the advantages of this line, she highlighted: the slitter automatically removed the film (upper and lower film), its capacity for making longitudinal and transversal cuts, its versatility for programming and making different parts in the same press, its automatic cleaning to prevent stoppages, the rapid raw material change or its communication and automation with the press. At the same time, she also compared a traditional press with a ‘short stroke’ HCL one, analysing the advantages of the second one.

A video was also screened during the presentation to show Fagor Arrasate capacities via its global presence, its production plants or technological lines including hot and cold stamping.

‘It was a very interesting presentation to be able to manufacture pieces for High Performance (HP-SMC) technology and high volumes in automatic mode and with better productivity’ commented Michael Effing, one of the AZL management team managers.

Fagor Arrasate has been a member of AZL for 3 years and has extended its partnership for a further 3 years as it is highly satisfied with the work done in this association. This is the 3rd time the co-operative has attended the annual members’ meeting, where it was possible for the first time to show all their technology to their partners. The meeting was also attended by Javier Acosta, Composite Project Manager of Fagor Arrasate.

During this annual meeting mobility and transport in general were identified likewise the most important markets for lightweight technology with autonomous driving and electrical mobility as the sector’s biggest challenges, which has an enormous impact on products, technologies and lightweight materials to be used. Among its targets, AZL aims to develop in co-operation with associated industry automated production of lightweight components appropriate for large scale production. Next year’s annual meeting of AZL members will again be in Aachen, Germany on 27th and 28th June 2018.