Stanley Black & Decker

Martin Taylor

Industrial laser technology streamlines production and can eliminate manufacturing challenges like low-quality production, product recalls, and scraps.

In every industry, tracking and solving manufacturing quality problems is essential. Product failure, scrap, and recalls can devastate the manufacturer's reputation and return on investments. A low-quality product can be expensive to manage and sell, and recalls can also damage customer satisfaction and shareholder confidence, which can last a lifetime. Manufacturers need to pay special attention to their service and quality as product recalls cost manufacturers while competitors benefit from product recalls.

Product quality specifications and industry regulations are important to manufacturers in developing processes. To maintain a high production rate and reduce downtime, changeover, and lost productivity, they must keep production lines as efficient as possible.

Over the years, modern manufacturers can complete complex processes faster and more efficiently using advanced laser beams and custom applications.

Manufacturing has benefited greatly from laser material processing technologies in the last decade, helping them achieve quality without compromising production speed and cost.

Precision: It is necessary to use high-precision tools when manufacturing parts that require tight tolerances. Traditionally it is challenging to achieve high levels of precision, especially with CNC machines, as stress and wear can negatively affect accuracy over time.

Repeatability: It is not enough to have precision alone to ensure consistent quality, and a manufacturer's processes must be repeatable, especially during large volumes of production. Laser systems eliminate wear and tear on machines since they are contactless. Over time, contact tools lose quality and require frequent maintenance due to wear and tear.

Flexibility: With laser technology, manufacturers can meet the evolving quality needs of their products while saving time and money. Lasers are available in several optical configurations tailored to each application. The software can handle configuration changes, allowing changeovers and implementing adaptations quickly.

There are many ways in which laser programming can adapt to accommodate different shapes, depths, lengths, and speeds during production. Machines without laser technology tend to require more complex adjustments to accommodate changes, and they can require extensive manual changeover and retooling. The integration of lasers is also flexible. Current installations or floor space limitations can accommodate robots, conveyors, or tabletop laser solutions.

Precision, repeatability, and flexibility: It is now possible to remove part masking by using localized laser cleaning. Instead of masking the areas that need protection from the coating, manufacturers coat the entire surface and clean the desired area. It saves time and cleans parts precisely at the same time.

A laser cleaning removes contaminants from a particular area while remaining unaffected by contamination in other areas. Fast and automated, the process prevents manual errors while speeding up.

Grit blasting and shot blasting are efficient abrasive blasting methods, but they can damage surfaces due to inaccuracy. The laser texturing process allows precise texturing without damaging surfaces, whereas manual texturing is highly unpredictable. A thermal spray coating is applied after this process to prepare surfaces.

As grit blasting creates microcracks and inclusions, laser texturing strengthens the surface by etching specific patterns that prevent cracks from forming.

A large manufacturing operation may also find blasting methods prohibitively expensive. Recycling and replacing blasting media are also necessary. Laser texturing creates micropatterns on surfaces with micrometer precision and repeatability, achieving the same goals at lower operative costs. Increasing surface adherence, wettability, thermal conductivity, and friction is one of the benefits of this system.

Laser technology's advancements have continued to impact the manufacturing industry. Manufacturing companies can deal with fewer quality problems with laser technology, leading to fewer downtimes, fewer reworks, and better repeatability.