Few Steps To Success

Lean manufacturers focus on eliminating all non-value-adding steps from their manufacturing processes. Examples of such waste include significant amounts of work in process, long setup times, and unnecessary worker motion. For Bob Campbell, owner and founder of Queanbeyan (NSW)-based Server Racks Australia – a business unit of Precision Metals Queanbeyan Pty Ltd – it is the latter which is critical to success. “Our whole manufacturing operation is based on eliminating the number of steps,” he says. “I’m a believer in the Toyota Production System. We manufacture all our server racks and other sheet metal products individually and just in time to guarantee timely delivery.”

Server Racks Australia combines state-of-the-art CNC machinery with a highly-skilled workforce, and the success speaks for itself. The business has been growing steadily over the last 30 years and today turns over around $12 million with 51 employees. “What is critical in our business is reliability,” Bob emphasises. As a result, the company primarily relies on equipment from Amada for manufacturing its server racks components. When asked why he has stayed loyal to that builder since installing the first of its machines many years ago, he cites two factors: reliability and the nearby competent support facility.

Among the many bending, punching, laser cutting, welding, and combination machines from Amada is the recently installed EM-3510 ZRT punching machine. Alongside the tool turret with 33 stations, the machine possesses a setup turret that can be equipped with tools during machine operation and feeds the tools into the turret as required. The system is able to house up to several hundred tools. As a result, companies can run complex jobs over a period of several days without any manual intervention.

“The automatic tool changer has saved our workers 200 steps to tool a turret,” Bob says. “Saving 200 steps in a 6000-step operation is quite significant in terms of payback and time-to-market.”