Only a few months ago, MARTIN expanded its manufacturing competence in the area of CNC sheet metal working through the procurement of a water jet cutting system. The company is now expanding its capacity in the area of stamping technology by investing in a new high-performance press from Bruderer. By doing so, MARTIN is in particular strengthening its position as a supplier of thin-wall, shaped sheet metal parts in the lot size segment from 50,000 to 1.0 million per year.
The new high-speed stamping machine supplements the latest machinery in the company’s forming technology segment – which includes deep drawing systems with pressing forces of up to 4,000 kN – by adding a highly flexible but very fast precision solution with fairly low stamping forces of maximum 200 kN. “Because the new stamping machine reaches speeds of up to 1,800 strokes per minute, however, we can now handle the large series production of precision metallic parts and films with gossamer thin wall thicknesses of just 0.1 or 0.05 mm very economically. By doing so, we are responding to the increasing demands of our customers in this market segment in which we have only been able to offer small and medium-sized series up to now,” explains CEO Christoph Martin.
Investment impulse from aviation industry
Christoph Martin received the signal for renewed investment in his machinery from the aviation industry, in which his company has had supplier release conditions with many manufacturers for many years. When a renowned aircraft builder inquired about a larger series of thin-wall, high precision steel rings shortly before the turn of the year, the entrepreneur decided at short notice to procure the new high-speed stamping machine from Switzerland. “We had had our eye on this machine for quite some time. Thanks to its adjustable stroke with mass compensation, its modern control system and micrometre-precise repeatability, it appeared to us right from the start to be the ideal strategic complement to our existing portfolio in forming technology,” emphasises Martin.
Perfect complement
In addition to all of this, the new stamping machine from Bruderer fits in perfectly with MARTIN’s cross-selling concept, with which the supplier is responding to the wish of many customer in the sheet metal working area to be able to procure as many services as possible from a single source. There are many opportunities for this, alone in the fields of plant engineering and production technology, because the machinery the company currently has at its disposal covers not only forming and deep-drawing technology with presses, stamping machines and bending systems, it also offers a large selection of processes from machining, laser and water jet cutting technology. Add to this welding technology with MIG/MAG, TIG, laser and resistance butt welding, as well as special laminating and gluing techniques and several labelling technology applications. MARTIN deals with surface finishing by focusing separately on each project through released suppliers of the end customer, while modern measurement and test technology is used for quality assurance. As a special and unique selling point, MARTIN also produces flexible shims for tolerance compensation. These are packaged, laminated and solid discs and rings from the M-Tech® product line. They are made specifically for each customer and process and substitute elaborate and expensive mechanical adjustment work in the assembly of components or when adjusting the play of roller bearings.
Partner in the development of parts
It is not only the great technical bandwidth of machinery that many customers have come to appreciate in the course of their collaboration with MARTIN, however. The company also scores points with its consultancy skills and a creative openness which play a vital role in projects requiring the joint development of parts and components. It is thanks to these qualities that objectives such as weight saving and a reduction of the number of parts, as well as the optimisation of functions and prices, can usually be achieved very quickly. “These factors are the focus of interest in many current customer projects and we usually achieve convincing results with a win-win character very quickly here,” says CEO Christoph Martin.