Mankenberg GmbH is a leading German manufacturer of self-acting control valves. Mankenberg’s valve offering ranges from standard valves to project-specific special valves, from individual products to large production series. Mankenberg’s customers operate in fields like energy, oil & gas, chemicals and food & beverage. The company employs around 180 people.
The German valve manufacturer Mankenberg has recently become one of the pleased owners of the T-DRILL S-56 collaring machine. Unlike the traditional users of the S-56, Mankenberg does not use the machine to collar pipes or tubes. Instead, Mankenberg leverages the advanced T-DRILL collaring technology in the production of valve bonnets. Outlets are created in the bonnets to accommodate the insertion of control equipment.
“The S-56 is a versatile machine that can be customized to meet various customer needs across different industries. Mankenberg’s application is quite out of the ordinary and technically quite different from the traditional. After cooperating in conducting technical research and optimizing the machine in terms of clamps and tooling, we are now pleased to have found the optimal solution and to have Mankenberg’s tailored S-56 fully operational”, says Kristian König, representative of T-DRILL in Germany through his company König Maschinenhandel.
Before the T-DRILL S-56, Mankenberg went through five different work phases to produce outlets on each bonnet. In addition to being time-consuming, the process contained several problems regarding diameter consistency and wall thickness. Solving the issues took valuable time and led to material loss as well as extra costs.
“The old five-step process took us about 15 minutes. We often ended up with a wall thickness that was too thin. When that happened, we had to dispose of the entire bonnet”, says Philipp Semmler, Team Leader Chipping Department at Mankenberg.
When Mankenberg and T-DRILL connected at an exhibition, it quickly became apparent that T-DRILL collaring might be exactly what Mankenberg needed to reach faster throughput times and smoother quality. Now, Mankenberg has been using the S-56 for over two months, with hundreds of bonnets manufactured.
“We now produce the outlets with one work phase in about two minutes. The quality has been perfect and there have been no rejects. The diameter and the wall thickness are the same every single time.”
According to Semmler, the T-DRILL collaring process is not only fast and produces a great end result, it is also easy. The S-56 has been designed with a user-friendly GUI interface, featuring adjustable machining parameters and the fine-tuning of motion profiles.
“Operating the machine does not require a lot of training, which again saves us valuable time. We just put the bonnet in and press a button.”
Semmler adds that the S-56 is also quite automated even without accessories or additional options.
“The collaring process is fully automatic. The machine has an automated rotating device, which has made the process of welding much easier. It would take considerably more time to weld by hand afterwards.”
Semmler has been happy with the communication with T-DRILL and with König throughout the entire process. Mankenberg successfully visited Finland and after producing samples, T-DRILL delivered, installed and commissioned the machine as well as provided user training. Mankenberg feels all steps of the project were successful.
After a couple of months of active use, Mankenberg has already made plans for utilizing the S-56 even more comprehensively in the future. Mankenberg and T-DRILL are currently developing a new clamping device for the company’s other product ranges. As a company investing heavily in modernization and development, Mankenberg is also looking into the possibility of adding automatic feeding and connecting the machine to other machines.
“We currently only use the S-56 in our own production, but have also been exploring the idea of offering collaring as a service for other companies. We see great potential in manifold production with our S-56 and would be the first provider in Germany to do so.”
Watch the video below to see Mankenberg’s T-DRILL S-56 in full swing!
Read more about the S-56
Visit Mankenberg’s website
Published: June 6, 2024
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