Bystronic UK Ltd (www.bystronic.com) will be on stand J98, where the company will be demonstrating an Xpert 40 press brake.

With a 1m 40-tonne capacity, this is the Swiss company’s smallest press brake, of which more than 300 have been sold world-wide in the last two years — 26 of them in Britain and Ireland.

Furthermore, a new Mobile Bending Robot is available for feeding the Xpert 40, turning it into a compact, automated bending cell for producing 3-D sheet-metal components.

The automation module is wheeled in front of the press brake and simply interfaced to it in a ‘plug and play’ arrangement. The company says that users can set up the robotics and be loading sheet-metal blanks for bending in just minutes.

Programming is carried out off-line, with ByVision Bending software allowing data to be imported without interrupting the job currently in progress.

The result is a cell with a high degree of process reliability that lends itself well to minimally attended multi-shift operation. Moreover, the Mobile Bending Robot can be retrofitted to any Xpert 40 press brake in the field.

An interesting feature of the cell is that the automation module is on wheels and the press brake itself is small enough to be moved by fork-lift truck, allowing the entire assembly to be relocated anywhere in a factory to suit variable production needs.