The Configurable Laser -
A Universal Manufacturing Tool
W
e live in a world where manu-
facturing processes and tech-
niques are evolving as never
before, with many different influences
driving change in both the technologies
that we use, and the ways in which they
are applied.
In certain sectors, such as automotive,
there is a growing demand for vehicle
customisation, meaning that higher
levels of flexibility are required to deliver
the choices that customers make. In other
sectors, such as consumer electronics,
product lifecycles are becoming shorter
as companies compete for market share
through the introduction of new product
variants.
Add to this the emergence of new
high-performance materials, and the
challenges for manufacturers are
multiplied, as they strive to identify the
production processes that will not only
meet the demands of today, but also have
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the capability and flexibility for future
production needs.
In this informative article, David Richter
– Engineering Product Manager - for
Universal Laser Systems Inc. explains
why flexible laser systems will play an
increasingly important role in both future
product development and manufacturing.
Laser manufacturing has undoubtedly
become one of the most precise and
powerful cutting, marking and machining
tools available to manufacturers in
recent times. The inherent flexibility of
laser systems as a non-contact multi-
process technology, capable of working
with a vast range of materials, will
ensure that laser technology will remain
at the forefront of tomorrow’s digital
manufacturing processes.
Although a highly flexible technology in
itself, many industrial laser systems are
designed and optimised to fulfil a specific
process, delivering high performance
within a narrow application range. Others
claim multiple capabilities, but deliver
lower overall performance levels, since
they are not particularly suited to or
optimised for any one task.
In contrast, the systematic approach
taken by Universal Laser has always been
to deliver the highest levels of quality,
accuracy and repeatability across the
broadest range of material types, with no
compromise in performance. This inherent
flexibility ensures that users are able to
configure and fine-tune their laser system
for the broadest range of tasks.
These characteristics are essential
attributes for the growing number of
instances where flexibility is becoming
the key word, as perhaps batch sizes
become smaller, the range of materials to
be processed expands, or indeed where
the laser system will be required to
perform more than one process.