Sani-Weld provides custom fabrication solutions to industries requiring sanitary equipment and a pristine manufacturing environment.

Food processing, oil and gas, medical, pharmaceuti-cal, and semiconductor industries all rely on the company. The breadth of the industries served by it means it works with a wide range of different metals and needs a robust cutting process.

To that end, the company invested in an AKS fiber-kut Laser system, with Hypertherm HyIntensity Fiber Laser power.

Fiber optic technology allows for more flexible table integration without the table size restrictions associated with CO2 lasers. Three times more energy efficient than CO2, HyIntensity Fiber Laser systems are effective for finefeatured cutting with no mirrors to maintain and calibrate and no lasing gas.

Bringing in the fiber-kut has allowed Sani-Weld to add more to its bottom line. In 2012 alone, the company brought nearly $200,000 worth of business

back in-house, and lowered its operating expenses due to the cost savings of running a fiber laser instead of CO2.

The company has also been able to take on more work, due to increases in production rates and the elimination of bottlenecks inside the shop. TheAKS cutting system platform is a dual pallet, inline shuttle system with a safety light curtain barrier. The maximum bridge speeds of the system are greatly in excess of existing fiber laser technology, so while the system helps Sani-Weld speed up its processes today, the platform will also allow for modular growth of the system in the future.

The effective area of the AKS system is 5 x 10 feet, a working area on the X/Y-axis of 61.5 x 122 in., and a Z-axis working area of 2.5 in. The total footprint of the system is 11 x 26.7 feet, and it has a positioning speed of 3,000 in./min.

“Job output with the new system is through the roof,” says Doug Manchester, President of Sani-Weld.

“In the past, it took us a week to turn product around, and now we can do it in less than a day.”

And with the fiber, they’ve been able to cut a wider range of materials, including polished stainless steel, mild steel, aluminum, brass, and nickel-cobalt.

“We were intrigued by Hypertherm’s HyIntensity Fiber Laser from the getgo,” says Manchester. “The more we learned, the more we became convinced it was the perfect solution for us.”

Finally, the laser has enabled Sani-Weld to produce more consistent parts with bolt-ready holes, fine feature cuts, and no dross, (photo inset above).

For more information, visit www.akscutting.com, www.hypertherm.com, or Canadian distributor Fabricating Machinery Solutions Inc. – www.fmscanada.ca.

Reprinted from Metalworking Production & Purchasing magazine, April 2013 issue.

Sani-Weld owners Doug Manchester and Neil Manchester in front of their AKS fiber-kut laser.

SANI-WELD Fiber technology allows fabricator to cut costs,

reduce outsourcing

Plasma cutting company Oxytech Industries (www.oxytech.ca) has

grown steadily in the past 10 years from a shop of four peo-ple, to an operation that runs

two shifts and currently includes 20 on its team, includ-ing five members of the Riordon family, the owners.

Over the past 10 years, the company has created a niche cli-

entele of smaller companies. “We run very custom jobs,” says Jim Riordon, president of Oxytech. “We don’t do OEM work and have a customer base of roughly 100 companies. The only thing

w w w . m e t a l w o r k i n g c a n a d a . c o m • February/March 2012

Metalworking Production & Purchasing

Cutting new paths to profit

The new AKS accu-kut plasma machine has just been installed at Oxytech Industries.

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