County Durham-based Hydram Engineering — one of the UK’s largest sheet-metal sub-contractors — has installed a Salvagnini P4 2116 panel bender (www.salvagninigroup.com) to help it cut set-up times, cycle times and labour input. Some jobs, previously completed in 60min by two men on a press brake, can now be completed automatically in less than 10min using the P4.

The company, which was founded in 1977, employs 200 people, occupies a 100,000ft² facility (soon to be increased 115,000ft²) and generates an annual turnover of around £12 million. It offers a complete sheet-metal-manufacturing service, including laser cutting, punching, pressing, forming, robotic welding, tube cutting, assembly and painting.

System technician Robert Young said: “We wanted to remove the manual handling associated with operating press brakes. The P4 has done that — and much more. The machine is so fast that we only run it one shift, even though we operate 24hr a day; in fact, we are still only just scratching the surface when it comes to fully utilising the machine’s capacity.”

“It was during a visit to Salvagnini’s factory in Austria that Hydram first saw the company’s ABA technology (Salvagnini’s automatic blank-holder system), which can adjust the tooling in less than 4sec in ‘masked time’ (before the previous cycle is finished).

Furthermore, the Salvagnini panel bender can accommodate panels up to 2,180mm long and form bends up to 165mm high. Mr Young says: “Since installing the machine in November 2013, we’ve been more than impressed with its flexibility and efficiency.

The panel bender’s ability to switch from one job to the next in seconds makes it an ideal machine for a sub-contractor such as ourselves. Some jobs that previously took two men over an hour can now be completed in less than 10min.

“Moreover, the universal tooling can produce safe edges, joggle bends and radius bends, as well as numerous special forms that are impossible to replicate on a press brake without special tooling.”