TUBE NEWS TN December 2019 | Page 8

» difficult-to-cut alloys such as aerospace, nuclear, and oil and gas, as well as high volume production environments where cutting is typically two to three times faster than when using conventional bimetal bandsaws. Additionally, recent expansion of bandsawing products to include the KASTOmiwin twin column, double mitring model in semi-automatic and automatic versions, plus the KASTOmicut pivot-bow mitre cutting saw for the workshop, is evidence of the company’s intention to strengthen its presence in the construction industry with a more comprehensive, single-source offering. Another area of ongoing concentration in the R&D department in Germany is the manufacturer’s Industry 4.0 programme for digitalisation and networking centred on proprietary integrated control systems and interfaces. With KASTOlogic, for example, the company offers a modular warehouse management system tailored to the storage of long goods and sheet metal. The system transparently maps all the processes between goods receipt and product dispatch, ensuring efficient control over material flow. Customised interfaces range from SAP, Infor and Microsoft Dynamics products to customer-specific software solutions, allowing easy connection to a higher-level host system. Even manually- operated warehouses can be managed through the KASTOmobile app, while the latter also allows monitoring of sawing machines to access data on cut length, target number and actual quantity, feed rate and cutting speed. Kasto also has solutions to integrate and automate production processes upstream and downstream of the sawing process – the KASTOsort robot. Industrial robots can not only sort and stack sawn parts but can also perform other tasks such as deburring, chamfering, centring, threading, marking and printing. 8 TUBE NEWS December 2019 Mr Wagner concluded, “With all this technology and back-up, our customers can make their manufacturing processes more flexible and efficient as well as benefit from optimal utilisation of machines, short non-productive times, reduced maintenance costs, lower production costs and other advantages. The quality of manufactured goods is higher than ever before and operating errors are virtually eliminated. “The end of political turmoil in Westminster is nigh, we all hope, and whichever side of Brexit you are on we should soon have certainty. Our customers and indeed all manufacturers should not forget that there is significant demand, both at home and especially abroad, that will lead to substantial opportunities for sales and exports. Let’s make 2020 a year of consolidation and of continuing to Make it in Britain.” . www.kasto.com