In 1997, young engineers Rosario di Gerlando and José Freire had their very first Deco machine delivered by Tornos. Still in use today at the Lauener facility and showing an impressive operating hour meter display of 76,301 operating hours, the clock shows the expertise accrued by the once young men.
Now, the Boudry based company near the French-Swiss border has almost 150 machines. The dedicated workshop for medical products represents about 50% of the company’s sales and the workshop is crammed with Deco and EvoDeco machines only. Mr Freire, the medical department manager explains: “The Deco/EvoDeco product is really accomplished and we are fully familiar with it.”
The company has been certified according to ISO: 9001, ISO: 14001 and ISO: 13485, but, as CEO Mr Emmanuel Raffner says: “These standards are a good basis for us to validate our processes. However, the requirements of our customers are consistently more demanding. This is the reason why we focus on two fields – watch making and the medical industry. It’s also why we purchase equipment that enables us to meet the specific demands.”
Shared know-how…
It’s true that the expertise gathered in the field of medical technology has benefited watch-making, and vice versa. The latter especially applies to the know-how required to produce minute parts. “Our experience in watch-making and especially in the manufacture of watch movement parts with a size of less than one millimeter helps us to produce ophthalmic needles with a diameter of a few hundredths of millimeters,” Mr Freire declares. The realisation of such parts is the standard for Lauener.
Flexibility and validation
The production at Lauener certainly has to be flexible. In fact, it must be capable of simply re-producing the prototyping processes and the processes for small-batch production in a real production cycle. “In a manufacturing cell for the medical industry, we carry out new set-ups every day. For some parts made of tough materials, new tools are required daily,” the department manager declares.
Training has always been a key to the company’s success. As far as awareness and vocational education are concerned, Lauener has always attached great importance to training. Incidentally, in the course of the introduction of the TB-Deco software in 1997, the company substantially contributed to the training of its employees in the use of the Windows tools. This was done by organising training courses and financing 2/3 of the acquisition cost for home computers for the employees.
Deco & EvoDeco – controlling processes
The machine bank consists of Tornos Deco and EvoDeco machines and is supervised by Mr Freire. Both the kinematic system and the programming of the first Deco machines from1996 are similar to those of the more recent EvoDeco machines last supplied. During that time, numerous attachments and tool holders have been provided with an interchangeable design. “We decided to purchase the machines due to their flexibility, productivity and precision. They did not disappoint us. The machines fully meet the current requirements and will certainly meet the future needs of the business. These machines are extremely versatile and we can produce virtually any part on them,” the manager declares. Adding: “For us, the kinematic system and the PELD language are the really strong points of the Deco and EvoDeco machines. For the production of complex parts, the machines remain the best in the market. These machines can machine workpieces that no other machine can realise.” Thanks to its optimum control characteristics, a new EvoDeco machine installed at Lauener will be fully operational in less than one week.
Customer-oriented approach of Tornos
Asked about the responsiveness and quality of the Tornos service, the Lauener managers confirm: “We are fully satisfied with our relationship with Tornos and we are following the evolution of the Tornos products with great interest. We consider the new multi-spindle lathes to be really interesting. For almost two years we have been feeling that Tornos is following an even more customer-oriented approach and this is certainly confirmed in our decisions upon machine acquisitions.”
