METAV 2016 to spotlight XXL machines Large-machinery manufacturers prioritising customised kit

Kekeisen produces very large milling machines, machining centres and special-purpose machines, and 70 per cent of the firm’s own machines were manufactured in-house. “If you don’t work with your own machines day and night, you aren’t going to know how they operate,” emphasizes Thomas Gebele, an engineering graduate and Managing Director of Kekeisen. “What’s more, typical teething troubles are difficult to eliminate if you don’t.”

Despite huge dimensions, no compromises on quality and precision

The typical Kekeisen customer is looking for machines that – despite their gigantic traversing distances of up to 20 metres – provide accurate machining down to a few hundredths of a millimetre. To manufacture high-precision production technology, you need a hall that is kept at a constant temperature, something that Kekeisen achieves not least by means of ceiling fans and ventilators. Apart from that, the requirements are many and varied for machines that are always a one-off product. Day in, day out, the plant in Laupheim makes gigantic special-purpose machines. To mention just two characteristic pieces of equipment: a machining centre with a turning diameter of four metres turns and mills roller bearings for wind farms, for example. Another production line has been fitted with two replaceable heads, which are instrumental in assuring fast machining of aluminium or alternatively slow, but powerful machining of titanium at high torques on one and the same machine.

Each machine is more or less a one-off

But clients expect tailor-made solutions not only for the machines they buy but also for after-sales service support. “Our service supports begins at a very early stage: with intensive consultancy on how to design and configure a certain machine,” reports the long-standing METAV exhibitor. “We take a long hard look at where the machine is to be erected.” Based on these talks, consultancy meetings and tours of the premises concerned, the new machine takes shape – requiring very high staffing levels in the design and assembly departments. To quote Thomas Gebele: “Even when we’re using prefabricated modules, the degree of customisation is up to 60 per cent.”

The METAV: the springboard to the Benelux states

Kekeisen is just as hard to please when it comes to trade fairs and exhibitions as its customers are in regard to the machines they order. “So far, we’ve always exhibited at the METAV in Düsseldorf,” emphasizes Thomas Gebele. “The main point in its favour is its venue: North Rhine-Westphalia is for our sector an immensely potent location, boasting as it does lots of heavy industry, plus numerous machine-tool manufacturers and mould-makers. Moreover, for us the fair constitutes an important springboard to the Benelux states.” He also sees the exhibition date, February 2016, as an advantage, since this means that the METAV takes place “at a sizeable distance in time from the EMO Milano”.

As from 2016, the METAV will be expanded to include what are called areas, four of them: the Moulding Area shows how the requirements of tool manufacture and mould-making can be successfully met with innovative production technology. But what does an entrepreneur who runs his own tool construction operation think about a Moulding Area and the exhibition’s new concept? To quote Thomas Gebele: “This concept fits in neatly with our own portfolio, in particular, since we are operating in the fields of both large-machinery production and machine-tool manufacture / mould-making. So at the METAV we also anticipate higher numbers of customers from the latter sector, whom we can show that we understand their problems and can offer the appropriately responsive solutions to them.”

Author: Nikolaus Fecht, specialist journalist from Gelsenkirchen

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Background

Kekeisen GmbH & Co.KG, Laupheim

It all began with tools: back in 1842, Clemens Kekeisen set up a factory specialising in making plane irons and wooden tool fittings in Laupheim (to the south-west of Ulm). Today, the family-managed company with a payroll of 160 ranks among the leading Swabian firms in the mechanical engineering and tool-making sectors. In Laupheim, large milling machines, machining centres, special-purpose machines, plus devices and forming tools for presses are produced with a high degree of vertical integration. The customer listing of this company, certified to DIN EN ISO 9001:2008, includes tool manufacturers and mould-makers, steelworks and their equipment suppliers, the mechanical engineering sector in general, plus manufacturers of timber-processing lines, offshore installations and wind farms.

Further information under www.kekeisen.de

METAV 2016 in Düsseldorf

The METAV 2016 – the 19th International Exhibition for Metalworking Technologies – will be held in Düsseldorf from 23 to 27 February. It showcases the entire spectrum of production technology. The principal focuses are machine tools, production systems, high-precision tools, automated material flows, computer technology, industrial electronics, and accessories, complemented by the new themes of Moulding, Medical, Additive Manufacturing and Quality, which are now permanently anchored in what are called “areas” with their own nomenclature in the METAV’s exhibition programme. The METAV’s target group for visitors includes all branches of industry that work metal, particularly machinery and plant manufacturers, the automotive industry and its component suppliers, aerospace, the electrical engineering industry, energy and medical technologies, tool and mould-making, plus metalworking and the craft sector.

Moulding Area at the METAV 2016

Moulding, together with tool and mould construction, is one of the most demanding application categories in the field of metalworking. High-precision machine tools produce moulds and tools of maximised quality because modern-day customers and consumers expect surfaces with an upmarket design, particularly in the case of plastic products. Besides conventional processes, progressively more numerous new process technologies are being adopted, such as laser-aided manufacturing for finely structured designer surfaces. The Moulding Area is themed around the specific requirements involved, and how they can be met by means of innovative production technology. The partners of the METAV’s organiser VDW are the Tool Manufacturing Department, a specialist group in the VDMA’s Specialised Section for Precision Tools, the Hanser Verlag publishers and the German-language trade periodical Form + Werkzeug (Moulds and Tools).

Further information under www.metav.de