February 2010 - When production management at Elevator Doors Inc., Elevator Cabs Inc. (EDI/ECI), Paterson, N.J., realized the company's old punching machine wasn’t providing the productivity needed, it found a unique combo machine that boosted production and dramatically reduced sheet metal handling.

Of the many sheet metal operations it takes to produce elevator parts, one was a stumbling block:?producing tapped holes in sheet metal with a punching machine. This eventually required a new way of looking at the procedure.

For more than 65 years, EDI/ECI has produced custom elevator cabs and entrances. Although the company doesn’t produce the entire elevator system, it manufactures a large part of it for companies that will install the elevator as a complete system, including rails, hydraulic systems and electrical systems to provide a finished product.

EDI/ECI dates back to 1943, when N.J. Engineering & Design Co. was formed in Paterson, N.J. After reviewing what the metalforming marketplace needed, the company decided to produce doors, door frames and cabs for elevators.

EDI/ECI has a metalworking and a woodworking facility in Paterson. Elevator cabs are often made from wood, not metal, or a combination of both, says Scott Akin, vice president of operations.

"We produce the door and frame that you walk through in an elevator, along with the cab, which is the box that you ride in," he says. "Our door and frame are fabricated at our metal shop, but the metal shop also supplies the wood shop with all the steel components needed for the cabs."

EDI/ECI’s more than 150 employees work in a facility that covers 65,000 sq. ft. For its metalworking production, the company has a full sheet metal shop with lasers, punches, press brakes, shears, painting and welding equipment.

The company uses a wide variety of sheet metals and some plate metal. On a few projects, it uses 3/8-in. stainless steel plate for an elevator’s door frame rather than stainless steel sheet bent and boxed for depth.

EDI/ECI primarily works with cold-rolled steel, galvanized steel, stainless steel, different types of bronze, nickel-silver materials and "whatever an architect digs up that’s new and different," says Akin.

Sum of its parts
When you enter an elevator, you’re actually riding in a box that’s either constructed of wood or steel. But the interiors of the cabs are furnished in many different finishes, so they might not look like wood or steel. Some of the more common finishes are laminated panels, mirrors, stone, architectural bronze and stainless steels.

  There are three basic parts to an elevator. There’s a mechanical part, which includes the rails that stabilize the cab’s up-and-down movement, including the ropes and motor that permit it to travel. There’s also the electronic portion, which tells the elevator what floor it’s at and where to go. Finally, there’s the visual components that people see: the outside frame, the door and the cab in which passengers ride.

Once an elevator cab and its components are produced, it’s broken down and shipped as four walls and a canopy.

"We build each one in our plant as a finished product, [then] do a complete quality inspection for both fit and finish," says Akin. "[After that, the cab and entrance components] need to be broken down and crated into individual walls for handling and installation in the building. Lastly, it’s all assembled in the elevator shaft."

EDI/ECI’s primary market is along the East Coast, but it ships worldwide, and the company is working on an overseas project now.

"Everyone likes to boast about this special project that we have a part in, and EDI was proud to be the manufacturer of the elevators for the Statue of Liberty," says Akin.

Tapped out and squeezed
Although EDI/ECI primarily uses one company’s equipment for punching and press brake work, it found that the punch press wasn’t providing the productivity necessary to produce tapped holes.

To make these holes on a punch, EDI/ECI extrudes them into the sheet metal and taps them. These operations had to be done downstream, increasing manpower and component-cycle time.

"At that time, we did a lot of secondary tapping in our materials," says Akin. "Equipment space was an issue for us. In addition, we manufacture elevator cab swing fronts [from sheet metal] that contain the elevator buttons pushed to select a floor. These buttons come in every shape and size that you can imagine. We found that in many cases, a new job would require us to buy new tooling to punch out these swing fronts due to the fact that the buttons’ sizes could differ by as little as 0.003 in., which made us purchase new punch tooling."

Akin also realized EDI/ECI had far too much sheet metal movement between processes. From a large sheet of steel, the company would precut the elevator-door components by shearing them to size and then place them on the punch.

This meant the sheet metal was moved about five to six times between the punch and press brake or other processes before it was finished. All of this added cost and reduced productivity.

Eventually, these challenges prompted EDI/ECI to look into lasers.

"When we had to cut radius geometries in our materials, a laser would work well for this," says Akin. "As we produced more high-end architectural elevator components, we needed to produce these types of radii. However, we needed something with more flexibility than a traditional laser could offer, and we really didn’t have the space for a new laser and punch. The next step was to look at combination punch/laser machines. This type of equipment would also allow us to tap at the machine, which was a big item for us."

The original punch press offered tapping, but it couldn’t support the types of tapping EDI/ECI was doing, says Akin. Therefore, the company began to look at different manufacturers, including Trumpf Inc., Farmington, Conn.

"Their punch/laser combination machine had great reviews, and I like the whole concept of their tapping head," says Akin. "We tap all sizes, but large diameters such as 5/16, 3/8 and 1/2 in. are more the norm than the exception. The company that we bought our original punch from couldn’t effectively produce or support the 3/8-in.-diameter tapping at the time we were looking for a new combination machine."

When EDI/ECI produces doors and frames, standard parts could have as many as 52 tapped holes in them, says Akin.

"Of those 52 tapped holes, they may consist of three different-sized tapped holes," he says. "It wouldn’t be unusual for us to produce 1,000 of these units in a month, so we are doing a lot of tapping."

After a review of manufacturers, Akin bought a Trumpf TC6000L punch/laser combination machine.

New addition
"Now, with the Trumpf punch combo, we’ve consolidated all of this extra work into one machine and have eliminated these downstream operations," says Akin. "As far as productivity is concerned, it’s helped us tremendously."

EDI/ECI also limited the amount of shearing work it does now.

"We’re running full sheets of metal, either 4 ft. by 8 ft. or 5 ft. by 10 ft., directly on the Trumpf equipment," says Akin. "We also nest our parts, tap and do all the downstream secondary operations right at the combination machine. Then the parts are being taken directly to the brake. It has dramatically reduced handling the materials and finished components."

EDI/ECI works with material thicknesses from 22 gauge to 1/4 in. It takes about 12 weeks from approval of the elevator’s design to production of the finished components.

"We also do a lot of remodeling of older elevator cabs because this is one of the first things you see when you come into a building," says Akin. "When they refurbish an older building, a person’s first impression of a building is the lobby and the elevator, so there’s a lot of focus on the elevator interiors. In one memorable occasion, we had to remove the purple shag carpeting off the walls and put something more up to date on them."

He also says the Trumpf punch/laser has worked out well.

"In fact, looking back, I’m not sure how we could’ve managed without it," says Akin. "It really adds to our flexibility. We do counter sinking, embossing and high-speed marking with it too. It has consolidated many existing secondary [and] new operations into one, improving on both productivity and quality." FFJ

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