January 2023- Flexible technology that can cut anything from foam to titanium provides fabricators with expansion possibilities.

In manufacturing, “major swings in demand are calling for drastic operational and capital cost reduction in some areas and rapid growth in others,” according to an article, “Transforming Advanced Manufacturing Through Industry 4.0,” published by McKinsey & Co. in summer 2022. The consultancy asserts that one way to address quickly changing customer preferences as well as demand uncertainty, trade barriers and logistics disruptions is implementing Industry 4.0 technologies, such as flexible automation, digital performance management, analytics and AI inspections. Another tool in the arsenal, however, is fl exible equipment.

“Sixty-plus percent of our customers that buy a waterjet machine certainly end up using it for the intended application but then they find they’re able to expand into applications they never envisioned they would do on their machine,” says Brian Sherick, vice president of global sales, for Flow Waterjet, Kent, Washington.

“One of our customers, an insulation company, bought their first waterjet years ago,” he continues. “It was a pure water cutting machine used to cut patterns out of insulation. As soon as they installed the machine, they realized they could add abrasive jet to cut metals and other hard goods. They ended up doing so much of that work outside of insulation that it became the entire focus of their business. Now, they own multiple waterjet systems, and 80 percent of the company’s revenue comes from cutting [metal] job shop parts.”

This model works on the flip side as well. All metals companies will be processing parts using abrasive jet; however, the ability to cut soft materials with pure water can provide a service beyond metal cutting in certain applications gaskets cut from rubber or plastic or a foam part, for instance.

EVERYTHING IN PLACE

Waterjet (and abrasive jet) cutting is so versatile because it’s a cold-cutting process “high-speed erosion” that can cut anything you put underneath the stream,” Sherick says. “Soft materials won’t melt or produce noxious fumes. If you use a torch to cut a 12-in.-thick piece of titanium, it’ll melt into a glob of nothing. But a high-speed, precision abrasive jet will erode a fine line through the material, and you can cut out a shape.

     Flow’s Mach 500 waterjet is built for production—it’s fast and accurate, its designers say. 

     Aluminum parts cut on the Mach 500 model.

     Flow’s Dynamic XD technology makes it possible to accurately cut compound angles.

Flow constantly is working on new features to make the technology more reliable, such as preventive maintenance plans that provide predictable, known operating costs. “Uptime is a critical factor for some shops,” Sherick says. “They want the machine to have the ultimate uptime. In addition to that, we always focus on how to produce the lowest cost per part. There are a lot of ways to analyze the cost of cutting but cost per part is, by far, the most accurate.”

He points out that often customers can get tangled in a web of numbers, calculating what the machine is costing them per hour or per minute, but, at the end of the day, it really comes down to how fast it’s kicking out parts. “A machine could costs $10 per hour to operate, but it’s only making one part per hour, while another costs $20 per hour but is making 100 parts. We’re producing the highest-possible pressure in the industry to produce the lowest cost per part. Pressure equals productivity,” in addition to decreasing the amount of garnet abrasive used.

      Enrollment in the FlowCare program helps companies make preventive maintenance a priority.

MAXIMIZING THE MACHINE

Once a waterjet is installed, a manufacturer should ensure that its staff is properly trained to become proficient, able to run the equipment properly and maintain it.

“We often find that customers aren’t running at peak performance, and it could be anything from settings not being exactly correct to suboptimal abrasive flow rates. Flow works to train people upfront to run their machines as efficiently as possible,” according to Sherick. In addition, “we recommend customers consider the FlowCare plan, where we partner with customers and are involved with the maintenance and operation of the machine to achieve the best reliability in the market.”

FlowCare, Flow’s preventive maintenance and service program, includes an extended warranty, a start-up consumables package, and enrollment in the company’s Intensifier Exchange Program.

Sherick says it’s important for fabricators to consider waterjet as a complementary process, not an either/or option. “There’s a place for all of them in an ideal world,” and it’s often not necessary to abandon plasma, oxy-fuel or laser.

“I’ve been in this business for 25 years, and one of the things that’s been very rewarding for us at Flow is that, as the economy goes through cycles, we see our waterjet customers thriving. And they can do that because they don’t have a narrow bandwidth of customers. Usually, even if the economy dips, some industries are strong. And the waterjet can help a company find the sector of the economy that is strong and go serve that area. FFJ