Manufacturer of aftermarket truck kits finds bending efficiency with new press brakes

SafanDarley's electric press brakes have helped Rough Country keep up with its bending work.

Situation

Rough Country is one of the nation’s largest sellers of lift kits and suspension products for utility vehicles and trucks in the U.S. In 2014 the company decided to start manufacturing the products it sold, and as a result of that move, it’s now a robust manufacturer in Dyersburg, Tenn.

The company has 325 employees; 70 of those are within the manufacturing area at its Tennessee location, fabricating two-thirds of all the metal products the company sells. The goal, in the near future, is to bring all production in-house.

When Rough Country decided to undertake manufacturing in 2014, it invested in a large press brake that’s still in use today. Since then it added two smaller press brakes to handle smaller parts. In both instances, the press brakes are able to do the job, but they have some shortcomings. The large press brake operates slowly, which is a problem in a manufacturing facility where brake operators are expected to run a minimum number of strokes per day. The other two press brakes are quicker, but they need tweaking after some jobs to dial in the specified tolerances for the job. That takes time to do and obviously minimizes productivity.

Resolution

To keep up with an increase in production, Rough Country manufacturing management began the search for new press brake technology in 2018. Jeff Price, a sales engineer for Capital Machine Technologies Inc., invited Jeff Epperson, Rough Country’s manufacturing manager, to go see an electric SafanDarley press brake in action at a customer’s location, and Epperson liked what he saw. Rough Country purchased the 88-ton E-Brake 80-2550 and had it installed in December 2018.

By February 2019 the new electric press brake was up and running. It quickly became a favorite of the press brake operators because they didn’t need to intervene with the bending programs to make edits, and the brake ran very quickly. As a result, the brake operator was able to hit the minimum stroke or piece part counts over the eight-hour shift without too much worry.

In the summer of 2019 Rough Country added another electric brake, a 39-ton E-Brake 35-1250. It then added a similar press brake in early 2020.

Epperson said he was pleased with the new brakes because new hires need only about two days of training before they are able to run jobs on the machine—with supervision close by, of course. The graphics provided by the machine software are easy to follow on the flat-screen monitors, and the magnetic finger holds the part to the backgauge when the ram comes down to meet the metal.

The press brake also is engineered so that the light guarding does more than provide a simple safety function, such as shutting down the machine if a finger is identified as being in the bending window as the ram is being engaged. The brake operator can use the light guarding as a means to operate the machine without using the foot pedal. For example, the operator can break the light guarding area with his hand to trigger the ram to produce a bend in a part automatically, without having to step on the foot pedal.

Rough Country’s use of the press brakes reflects its satisfaction with the machines. As of this summer the 88-ton SafanDarley had more than 2 million strokes on it, and the first of its two 39-ton SafanDarley machines was approaching 1 million strokes.

SafanDarley/Capital Machine Technologies, https://capitalmachine.com/bending/electric-press-brake/