BURAG AG has been active in metal and tube machining for 80 years. The highly specialised company in Eschlikon, Switzerland, processes steel tubes into tube fittings and tube formed parts. Threads are rolled, moulded and cut. Tube ends are drawn, expanded, rolled and profiled and where necessary, the tubes are also drilled.
BURAG AG's customers include leading companies in sanitary and fastening technology, the machine industry, heating and combustion manufacturing as well as agricultural machinery. The highest levels of precision, quality and flexibility are required. Efficient manufacturing processes are developed for customers in the production halls and wherever possible, the processes are fully automated. The goal is to implement processes that run without human intervention.
This type of automated production was also required to produce connecting pipes for a machine in the agriculture industry. The aim was to produce 25,000 workpieces per year as efficiently and reliably as possible. The engineers at BURAG AG developed a customised production strategy and produced the first series of tubes for the customer to their complete satisfaction. However, the BURAG AG team was not satisfied with the process for the four bores in the pipe. Due to an unreliable drilling operation, a lot of time had to be invested in monitoring the drilling result. In addition, the process time was very long, as a second tool was used for deburring the front and back bore edges after drilling. All in all, it was an unstable process that repeatedly pulled on the nerves of the people in charge.
As HEULE tools were already in use at BURAG AG, the Swiss deburring specialist was contacted again to find a solution. During an initial on-site visit by Eisenbart GmbH, the HEULE sales partner for Switzerland, various options were discussed and passed on to HEULE for a feasibility study. The result was an application-specific drilling combination tool that combines drilling with deburring on both sides of the bore in one operation and promises a reliable deburring result even with uneven bore edges.
The special tool from the VEX combi tool range first drills the bore. The spring-loaded COFA deburring blade then removes the burrs on both sides of the bore – in a single operation. Thanks to this tool, BURAG AG saves one tool change and thus significantly reduces the cycle time. It also eliminates the risk of the deburring tool breaking, as both operations are carried out in a single pass. The workpiece is made from two tubes of different materials pressed into each other, which makes the machining operation even more demanding. This is why the experts at HEULE provide the carbide deburring blade with a high-quality coating and finish the drill head with a rounded cutting edge and a customised coating.
BURAG AG is very pleased with the customised tool solution: the time saved per bore is 12 seconds, which results in an impressive 333 hours for 100,000 bores per year. This example shows that optimising process steps brings great benefits.