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Testimonial HME, inc.
- Core business:
- Location:
- Employees:
- Tonnage:
- Steel Fabrication
- Topeka, Kansas
- 401
- 39.000 / year
"We look forward to continue working with Voortman as the future progresses. They have a lot of new equipment out that they're starting to promote and we're excited to see once these machines come out into production."
A CONTINUING PARTNERSHIP
Since 2012 HME has been using Voortman machines to produce their parts. The company's growth has led to further investments in the machinery fleet, including a V631/VB1250 drill/mill saw combination, V2000 cambering machine and a V325 heavy plate processing machine. The recently installed a fully automated Painting line, equipped with a pre-heater and drying tunnel.
MILLING CAPABILITIES AND HEAVY PLATE PROCESSING
The addition of a Voortman V631 drilling and milling machine really balanced their workload. Scott King explains: "It adds additional milling capabilities that we don't have with our other drills. So having that availability to mill those profiles really allows us to balance our workload and get more throughput."
With a massive
drilling head and 20-station automatic toolchanger, the Voortman V325 is a
must-have heavy plate drilling, cutting and milling machine.
Scott
emphasizes the importance: "The V325 has been a great addition to the rest of our
equipment. We can process up to four inch plate 120 inches wide, 240 inches
long."
A
big advantage of a Voortman passthrough plate processing machine is automatic
unloading of finished parts. Scott believes it adds great value: "After the part is cut, it
drops onto the conveyor system and it conveys it out while the machine
continues to process the rest of the material."
They make use of the full range of the
machine's capabilities, drilling and milling in one operation and beveling the
edges of cut parts. "Specific jobs require a very tight tolerances on some holes that
are too big for the drill spindle. So in those scenarios we will mill those
holes, also smaller diameter slots and thicker plates", says Scott
FULLY AUTOMATED PAINTING
The company's latest investment was a fully automatic painting line. Scott explains the components of this line: "It's an automated paint line with pre-heat tunnel. Material rolls through there, gets the material up to temperature then goes into the paint booth where it gets painted all the way around. Then proceeds into a drying tunnel to help paint cure and then out to an automated outfeed.
HME has been working with a lot of infill beams that don't require any parts. These beams are ideal for being painted with high efficiency. On average, HME runs between 40 to 50 beams on a typical shift. Scott is enthusiastic about Voortman's unique automated material handling: "You load the material onto the end feed, you put it on your buffer and they can tell it how many pieces of which profile you have. The sensors and the material handling will come and find the material. They'll separate it out to the right distance to allow for the paint to get on. All four sides of the material proceeds, to move it up to the datum line and then roll through the machine to be painted."