Rapid Granulator is making a major investment in machining equipment at its headquarters in Bredaryd, Sweden. Installation of three high-precision, highly automated machining centers, with a total investment of €4.5 million, will provide the company with extra capacity to produce core components to very tight tolerances while improving overall process flow.
A new “Done-in-One” turning and milling machine was installed in April, followed by a horizontal machining center in June; a third machine is scheduled to go into operation before the end of the year. The machining centers are fully integrated with an FMS (flexible manufacturing system) center, involving automatic rail-guided vehicles that have the capability of running without any operator intervention.
Components produced on the new equipment will be used in granulators that Rapid produces in Bredaryd and also at its U.S. facility in Pittsburgh, PA.
“In the future, we will be able to produce tolerance-critical components in much bigger numbers and in larger sizes in-house than before,” says Rapid’s CEO Bengt Rimark. “Machining for us is a core technology. We need to maintain very high accuracy and precision, so it is very important that we have complete control over production of the principal components in the cutter housings.”
“We are very happy that our new owner, Lifco, has the vision to build for the future. Lifco has a long-term interest in Rapid. It analyzed what was necessary to take us to the next level, and came to the conclusion that the bottleneck was in our machining centers. Hence this investment,” adds Rimark.