3 Fundamentals of press design

400 Sheet metal forming and blanking
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Fig. 4.9.6 Layout of a stamping plant with material flow
1 coil storage; 2 blanking line; 3 intermediate pallet storage;
4 intermediate blank storage; 5 tri-axis transfer press; 6 die storage for 5;
7 racks for finished parts for 5; 8 crossbar transfer press; 9 die storage for 8;
10 racks for finished parts for 8; 11 to intermediate finished part storage;
12 offices and recreation facilities; 13 die repair and cleaning
parts, for example, for wrinkles and cracks (cf. Table 4.2.2) – and also
the testing of workpieces for dimensional accuracy using measuring
devices or gauges. However, this type of control process is both timeconsuming
and labor intensive, and is generally only used in the case
of large, complex workpieces such as body panels or for random sampling
of smaller parts.
Where small punched parts are involved, the preferred system is one
of on-line controls in which quality assurance is integrated in the manufacturing
process itself, i.e. in the press. This permits monitoring of
each individual part and of process parameters such as die wear.
Visual inspections or workpiece gauging are increasingly being
replaced by optoelectronic and image processing systems. Simple opto-
Metal Forming Handbook / Schuler (c) Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1998
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