New Three Axes Drilling Machine "3DH-1000III" demonstrates its power for growing structural steel processing

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Structural steel process and anti-seismic reinforcement of schools are two major pillars

Fujitetsu Co., Ltd. is carrying out business with two major pillars of structural steel processing and anti-seismic reinforcement in Nara CityThey are receiving orders at a quick pace thanks to Tokyo Olympics, recovery from earthquake, and national resilience.New Three Axes Drilling Machine "3DH-1000Ⅲ" and the "NCDP-50" that performs automatic drill grinding, offer high efficiency processing for the growing structural steel processing market.Productivity increased more than two times over conventional machines and workers highly praise the new process which is also contributing to an improvement in motivation for the whole company

① Three Axes CNC Fully Automatic Drilling Machine for H-shape Structural Steel, model 3DH-1000Ⅲ was purchased in September 2013, "Compared to the previous machine (3BH-900) that was deteriorated seriously, productivity improved more than two times." (President Shimoda)／② Drilling H-shaped steel with 3DH-1000Ⅲ.／③ H-shaped steel after drilling to web and flange.

Fujitetsu Co., Ltd.

Case Study

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Main Facilities

CNC Three Axes Full Automatic Drilling Machine for H-shape Structural Steel: 3DH-1000Ⅲ / Band Saw Machine: HK-1000 / NC Drill Grinding Machine for Structural Steel: NCDP-50 / Edge preparation machine / 3D structural steel CAD: S/F REAL 4, etc.

Company name: Fujitetsu Co., Ltd.Representative Director, President: Hiroshi ShimodaLocation: 645 Yamacho, Nara City, NaraTelephone: 0742-61-2277Establishment: 1965Employees: 25Business Outline:

Processing and assembly of structural steel for buildings (M grade), anti-seismic reinforcement, others

URL: http://www.fujitetsu.co.jp/

Company Profile

Structural steel processor whose two major pillars of business are structural steel process and anti-seismic reinforcementFujitetsu Co., Ltd. is an M grade and middle-sized structural steel processor based on Nara city. Its two major pillars of business are structural steel process including assembly, construction, and anti-seismic reinforcement of school buildings. The company was established in 1965 under the name of Fujitetsu Kogyo Co., Ltd. by Mr. Kazushi Kajiwara in his mid-thirties who had been working for an ironworks company. In the early days of the company, he developed new business by manufacturing parts such as gratings for tankers and by responding to requirements of government related organizations. After that, the company entered into the structural steel market for buildings and building material suppliers as the company started receiving orders from Kansai House Co, Ltd. (Osaka Pref.) for manufacturing and assembly of H steel material, pillars, beams and prefabricated parts for houses used for the system architecture "Stan Package" of Nippon Steel Corporation (at that time). The company received approval of M grade factory and expanded its business smoothly. In 1985, Mr. Hiroshi Kajiwara (now chairman) became the second president and changed the name of the company to Fujitetsu Co., Ltd. He promoted diversification by expanding business into the field of anti-seismic reinforcement of school buildings taking advantage of the opportunity of Han-Shin Awaji Earthquake disaster while obtaining the business of structural steel and building material. As Fujitetsu was the fastest company in Nara Prefecture to deal with anti-seismic reinforcement, orders for construction work have never been discontinued so far. Currently construction work for anti-seismic reinforcement accounts for 25% of sales amount of the company.

The third president, Mr. Hiroshi Shimoda joined the company in 1993. He applied for the in-house public invitation for the "candidate for the next executive manager" when he had been striving for receiving orders as a sales person in the Osaka Sales Office and he became the third president. "The previous president and his predecessor also had free thinking that did not care about blood relation. Originally, I had strong hope for managing a company. When making a company from nothing, I needed a lot of time, labor and funding to open new factories and facilities and to gather employees. But thanks to the success of this company's business, I could inherit all assets accumulated in more than 40 years. Especially, I think it was a great thing that I could take over a rare opportunity of relationships and trust with existing customers." Mr. Hiroshi Shimoda became the third president in

Mr. Hiroshi Shimoda, President and representative director 3D structural steel CAD S/F REAL 4

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high, the busy period for construction work is from July 20th when the summer holidays for school begins to the end of August and orders that have not been fulfilled in this period are implemented in September and October. Processing of structural steel starts in June and since time is limited, "we are desperate in this period" (president Shimoda). In the case of a consortium bid from local government, for example, invitation for bid starts from May every year for Nara Prefecture and from June for Nara City. Jobs are decided in order. Number of orders is 10 to 30 depending on the size of the buildings. "The number of structural steel frames for anti-seismic application that we can manufacture and install in one season is 130 units maximum. Keeping this number in mind, we try to get early information for the next year or so and take actions for sales. Since we are working not only for schools but also for repairs of factories and office buildings, we are up to our neck in work in the periods of year-end and new year holidays, the golden week of May and the Obon vacation when many schools and companies are off."

Fully utilizes Drilling Machine 3DH-1000ⅢFor our present work load, the first unit of a Three Axes CNC Fully Automatic Drilling Machine for H-shape Structural Steel model 3DH-1000III that was introduced in September 2013 demonstrates its power. "Originally, we had been using the Drilling Machine model 3BH-900 and the Band Saw Machine HK-1000 that were introduced in 1992. After 20 years since their introduction, deterioration of the machines became

2010 when he was 39 years old, it will be 17 years since he has entered the company"It's been a hard time after Lehman's fall, but as customers supported us and the previous president had expanded business to other field than structural steel processing, we could make it without reducing sales amount and have been doing well for these four terms."

Order receiving for structural steel process has expanded at a quick paceThe company's business consists of 75% structural steel processing and 25% anti-seismic reinforcement plus a fraction of building material processing. It processes 200 to 300 tons of steel material every month. Almost all customers for structural steel process are general contractors and subcontractors in the Kansai area such as Nara, Osaka and Kyoto but sometimes Fujitetsu receives orders for products for areas other than Kansai from customers who have wide networks in Japan. There are opinions that in Kanto area, the market should continue to be active until 2020 because there are needs to deal with: Tokyo Olympics in 2020, anti-seismic, disaster mitigation, recovery from earthquake damage, and national resilience. President Shimoda says, "We do not receive directly such orders. But I'm hearing that H grade structural steel processors receive considerable volume of orders and we also receive orders indirectly through H grade customers. Although the building industry is said to be in a good condition, there is a regional difference. In some regions, production capability of steel processors reached a limit, but in other regions, no such situation is shown." "For structural steel processors including ourselves in the Nara Prefecture, order backlog is growing more than ever since May or June. So far, we have been maintaining a three month backlog of orders without any breaks and in this year, since June we have a full backlog of orders for this year. We are in a situation that we have to decline orders from customers in this Prefecture who have been giving great support to us. It is a big problem for us dealing with those orders. When considering about the future, we cannot be optimistic although we have a lot of jobs for the time being."

Busy with anti-seismic reinforcement from July to SeptemberFor anti-seismic reinforcement, structural steel frames are embedded in openings such as window frames of school buildings. As the proportion of orders for schools are

To setup machine, the operator sets the grinding amount at 2 mm and presses the start button, after that the machine performs the grinding automatically. The workers praised highly, "I can be away from the machine during grinding, it's very helpful."

Drill is set to NC Drill Grinding Machine for Structural Steel NCDP-50

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serious. We have been considering replacement of the machines but the Six Axes NC High Speed Drilling Machine 6BH-1000III of Amada Machine Tool could not be installed in our factory due to space problem. Considering of our processing records, we determined that specifications of 6BH were not necessary for us. We had hoped for a successor to the 3BH and as soon as we heard about the release of the 3DH-1000III, we decided to evaluate the first unit." "When evaluating the new machine, we evaluated not only the machines of Amada Machine Tool but products of other manufacturers and compared them. Each of those machines seemed to have advantages and disadvantages. We also looked at the relationship between us and the vendor, whether the manufacturer is a company we can get along with for more than 20 years without worry was important criteria for our decision. A sense of security with Amada Machine Tool who has responded to each of our small maintenance requirements for the 3BH-900 was the determining factor for the decision to purchase from them." The 3DH-1000III employs a "double clip system" for the material feeding mechanism that features a compact sized machine and high precision processing with a positioning accuracy of ±0.5 mm per 13 mm. Material feeding speed and processing amount increased significantly by making a gripper stroke longer than conventional machines and improving the moving speed. By adopting "clean mist" that is environmentally friendly, use of cutting oil was reduced as much as possible and scattering of cutting oil was prevented resulting in reduction of treatment work in a post-process. Data input I simple with a graphical operating system. "As it is the first unit, we understand that occurring bugs to some extent are unavoidable. Recently, the machine stopped working and a service person from Amada Machine Tool responded rapidly, there was no big problem. We told the service person last March, "As drilling work will increase from the end of April,

please make sure it does not stop working again", after that, there was little trouble and the machine is working smoothly." "Compared with the previous machine (3BH-900) that was apt to have troubles due to deterioration, productivity improved more than double. For the 3DH-1000III, job preparation is easy and once complete the machine automatically measures size and makes positioning and therefore you do not need to stay by the machine. Workers in the processing site say "it is fast and good". The initial improvements were extremely high for us and we are satisfied with it."

High praise for Drill Grinding Machine NCDP-50"The NC Drill Grinding Machine for Structural Steel model NCDP-50 purchased at the same time is fantastic. At first, we had no plan to purchase it, however because of strong recommendation by the sales person from Amada Machine Tool and a friend in another structural steel processing company said, "You must buy it," we decided to purchase it. The worker in charge of processing in the site praises, "It’s very good" (president Shimoda). We heard from a worker in charge of the drill sharpening process, "when setting a drill, set the grinding amount at 2 mm and press the start button, after that the machine performs the grinding automatically. The operator determines when the drill is dull from the sound of the drilling operation. This is usually every two days and the grinding process takes 10 to 15 minutes. Before, it was done manually and took about 10 to 20 minutes for one drill. Because the process used to be manual, the worker had to stick to it but with the NCDP, he can be away from the machine during grinding, it's very helpful." he commented. President Shimoda says, "Although it was a supplementary improvement, when introducing 3DH-1000III, even the young employees were united and

CNC Three Axes Full Automatic Drill ing Machine for H-shape Structural Steel model 3DH-1000Ⅲ introduced by the company in September 2013 (left) and NC Drill Grinding Machine for Structural Steel NCDP-50 (right) presented by Amada Machine Tool

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welcomed the installation. It was the first time for me since I became a president that such a big investment for facilities was made and also it was a big discovery for me to see young employees excited and being in high spirits when they heard of introducing new machines. This proved there are more benefits than just higher productivity with new machines." Issue is increase of rework At present, aiming at improvement of productivity is not only in the drilling process but also in the whole line, we are considering replacement of the existing band saw HK-1000 to a CNC Band Saw Machine for Cutting Shaped Steel with model HK-1000CNC. "Actually, we wanted the HK-1000CNC earlier than drilling machines. We were impressed by the fact that we could make conversation besides the machine when we saw HK in process at an exhibition booth of Amada Machine Tool. But since deterioration of 3BH-900 became serious, we purchased the 3DH-1000III faster. Of course we have to respond to growing amount of orders. Before, we had order backlogs of "by three months" and now, we are at "by the end of year". We are in a better situation to think about investment in machinery and recruitment of manpower." "However, these days, a result of additional processing capabilities puts additional pressure on engineers. I feel we have to have sufficient processing capability and the system and place for stocking products in our plant." For structural steel to be used for building construction, architectural design is performed first, then structural design including strength analysis is made based on those criteria. A structural steel processor like Fujitetsu prepares structural steel processing drawings. Normally, architectural design and structural design are made by dedicated designers respectively. If cooperation of those designers does not go well, problems in the strength and structure are f o u n d a f t e r p r o c e s s i n g o r s o m e t i m e s d u r i n g construction of structural steel frames and rework become necessary . In that case , structural steel frames already delivered to a customer or placed in a pile at an outdoor site waiting for shipment must be brought back in the factory again and additionally

processed in the intervals of production schedule. Due to this rework, the amount of structural steel processing drawing that the processing company has to prepare increases, which decreases man-hours for processing and designing for new jobs. "In almost all the cases, that additional cost is waste that reduces profit. I instruct our designers, "considering the structure of a building before and after processes of structural steel processing, provide customers with recommendation and feedback from us so that avoid rework as much as possible," but it does not work well. In our pile and pillar unification structure method "Eco-frame" that is environmentally-friendly, as we undertake all designing efforts with structural designing, such problems are not many. Since there are legal restrictions such as registration of architect's office and a problem in procedures of drawings approval, we cannot deal with all of them right now." "As there are many customers who say, "Since Fujitetsu manufactures, we order with them," we cannot let somebody else process orders easily for us. We have to consider the transformation of our factory but as we are a company born here and grown in this location, there is a thought that it is hard to leave this place. At present, we are reviewing various directions including conducting M&A to a structural steel processor that is mainly dealing with our jobs and is M grade or below and let it process our orders under our control."

Hand over to next generation President Shimoda says, "The previous president took over this company from the first president and grew it big. In my time, my role is to keep implementing new technology, improve productivity in the facilities and to hand them over to the next generation. Keeping this in mind, I would like to think I am steering towards the future" concluded by him.

Structural steel frame in assembling Reinforce H-steel by adding stiffener to web

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