#Industry News
AFP® - NC-Locator - Increase flexibility in your production
Highly flexible and extremly powerful. NC-Locators enable flexible production of several product variations economically on one line.
For numerous industrial manufacturers, production costs continue to rise due to increasing number of product classifications and declining lot sizes. With the new AFP® – Axis’s from Leantechnik, there is a break through from this vicious cycle; offering the opportunity to produce numerous product variations economically on one line.
The NC locators are used to position brackets, clamps, or to centralize, as well as the flexible incorporation of product components. The AFP® System consists of an X axis, Y axis and a Z axis; each with a 24 V brushless DC Servo drive that contains an easily integrated programmable control and a CANBUS interface. Each axis and motor drive are defined according to the specifications of the customer and are combined according to the requirements of the application.
The system was developed on behalf of a distinguished automotive manufacturer that wanted to reorganize the fabrication of its chassis within the assembly process. A single production line ought to have the ability to produce different automotive models without having to rebuild the production line each time. To optimally meet these conditions, Leantechnik has conceptually designed the NC-Locator modules as a “System Assembly Kit”. It is composed of individual axis’s, motor drives and connectors, which can be assembled collectively to achieve designated parameters. This creates a completely individual positioning system that incorporates flexibility for changing production conditions.
Each axis and every motor drive are defined separately and combined according to the customer’s assembly specifications.
As the basis of the AFP®/NC Locators, we apply our proven lifgo® linear 5.0 Gear Rack Drives.
The transfer of rotary forces into linear motion, provides a lifting force of 2,000 newtons with a lifting speed of 3 m/s and an acceleration of 50 m/s².
The lifgo® linear series is characterized by its precise synchronization, even at high speeds and was specially designed for applications with long traverses.
The AFP® / NC locators are suitable for all companies that need to produce a large number of product variants within a production line.
