For a ring stub for an angle piece, fluid technology specialist EISELE saw optimization potential. With the help of a special cutter with interchangeable heads from ISCAR's MULTI-MASTER series, the company manages with one less tool and saves around two weeks of processing time per year – with better surface quality and significantly longer tool life.
EISELE GmbH is an internationally operating company of the HENN Connector Group based in Waiblingen. 130 employees develop, produce, and market all-metal connections, for example, for fluid and pneumatic applications. Founded about 80 years ago in the pneumatic industry, EISELE has developed into a sought-after provider of innovative connection solutions for fluid technology over the past decades. This includes plug connections, hose fittings, quick-release and multiple couplings. Worldwide distributors and the subsidiary Eisele Connectors in Michigan, USA, ensure the global availability of the products. Customers come from almost all industries, including the laser industry, food and beverage sector, as well as automation and robotics.
"For our components, the motto is 'fit and forget,'" says Ralph Kaun, team leader CNC turning at EISELE. "They are adapted to their task, installed, and then – in the spirit of sustainable economics – last for the entire machine life. Therefore, quality, durability, and reliability have the highest priority for our customers."
Room for improvement in user-friendliness and quality
To ensure this, EISELE continuously checks its production processes. At the beginning of last year, Kaun identified optimization potential in one of the company's bestsellers: a ring stub that belongs to an angle piece from the Inoxline. This is a connection system with a very special technology for the food and pharmaceutical industry. The company produces this component thousands of times a year – in different sizes, but always from stainless steel. Until now, EISELE manufactured the hole in the ring stub in three work steps. First, the team pre-drilled with a 10.5 drill and counterbored the recess, then milled a 16-step with a 15.2-millimeter cutter and counterbored it.
Finally, a countersink tool created a 60-degree bevel. The problem: In the end, 325 seconds were on the clock per ring stub. "The whole process took forever, was very cumbersome, and there was also room for improvement in terms of quality and user-friendliness," Kaun recounts. The team also struggled with chip nests that had to be manually cleared regularly and scrap.
A better, faster, and above all, more practical solution was needed. "I thought about it, and the MULTI-MASTER cutter from ISCAR came to mind as a suitable option," says Kaun. "I discovered it at the ISCAR booth at AMB 2022, and at one of the very informative special tool customer seminars in Ettlingen, I saw what it could do."
Special tool as an elegant solution
With this plan in mind, Kaun contacted Achim Wuchter, technical consulting and sales at ISCAR. He described the task and the requirements to him. The solution should shorten processing time, be user-friendly, prevent chip nests, and produce little scrap – with tight manufacturing tolerances of two micrometers and an Rz of 6.3. "It quickly became clear that we could elegantly solve the task with a special cutter from the MULTI-MASTER series," Wuchter recounts, bringing in his colleague Calogero La Quatra, product specialist Multi Master & Solid Carbide at ISCAR, for the design.
ISCAR's MULTI-MASTER series offers users interchangeable solid carbide milling heads with up to four cutting edges. Its modular design with interchangeable heads simplifies tool changes. As with systems using indexable cutting inserts, the user does not replace the entire tool, but only the cutting edges. Since the milling heads are simply screwed into the tool holder, there is no need for re-measuring after the change. This reduces the time for this from ten minutes to just one.
"It goes incredibly fast, is incredibly easy, and reduces setup time to almost zero," explains La Quatra. "Additionally, we save resources with the system because we only replace the head and not the entire tool," adds Kaun. "This sustainability aspect is also a very important point for us." The tools are available with diameters ranging from eight to 25 millimeters.
At EISELE, a three-cut MULTI-MASTER cutter with uneven pitch is used for a soft cut. The combined 15-millimeter cutter and countersink is executed in the wear-resistant, PVD-coated fine grain type IC608 for long tool life. "This allows EISELE to safely integrate the 16-step and the 60-degree bevel with just one tool – previously it was two," says Wuchter.
Tool exceeds expectations
For a Saturday in early summer, a first test on-site was arranged at short notice. "However, the tools had not yet been returned from the coater," Wuchter recounts. "To avoid the usual two days for shipping, I got up at five on Friday morning, picked up the MULTI-MASTER heads directly from the coater, and handed Ralph Kaun the finished tools the same day." The effort paid off; the test went more than satisfactorily and yielded surprising results.
"Even the first parts came out well, there was hardly any scrap, and the surfaces fit too," summarizes Kaun. "But much more importantly – the processing time was reduced by around 40 percent to just 196 seconds. With 8,000 to 10,000 parts per year, we can save almost 14 working days and gain free machine time."
The solution went directly into production after testing and far exceeded expectations for tool life. With the old process using the indexable insert milling cutter, EISELE only achieved a maximum throughput of 400 parts before the inserts had to be changed. 'I had aimed for us to achieve 500 workpieces per cutter with the new solution, hoped it might even reach 1,000, and was astonished when we reached 1,500 while maintaining consistently good quality,' praises Kaun.
'There would probably be even more possible.' For safety reasons, EISELE does not push the tool further. For the next milling head series, ISCAR is changing a detail on the cutting edges to make them even more wear-resistant. EISELE has also commissioned ISCAR to adapt the tool for the other sizes of the ring stub. 'We ultimately want to take advantage of the benefits gained when producing smaller or larger components,' summarizes Kaun.
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