DN SOLUTIONS

As we all know, a cornerstone supports a house or a building. But only the strongest cornerstones can support a building for a hundred years or more. What then is the cornerstone of a machine tool? It is the bed. The bed, which serves as the platform constituting the body of a machine tool, should have high durability and precision, as these qualities are directly linked with the quality of the machine. Sungwoo, a company that understands this principle better than anyone else, produces beds for machine tools.

Sungwoo’s 29-Year Partnership with Doosan Machine Tools

Located in Changwon, Sungwoo, which celebrates its 29th anniversary this year, manufactures large parts and mechanical parts, including beds, automatic tool changers (ATCs), and other medium and large size frames for use in machine tools, as well as chip conveyors and other peripheral devices for machine tools.
After establishing its research institute in 2005, Sungwoo expanded the scope of its business from its initial focus on the development of key parts for machine tools to the manufacturing of large parts such as beds and ATC frames for machine tools. In 2010, in order to manufacture products of greater precision, Sungwoo purchased Doosan Machine Tools’ multitasking double-column machining center (DCM).

Stating that the bed is rightly viewed as the cornerstone of all machine tools, the executive managing director of Sungwoo, Gyeongcheol Lee, emphasized: “As linear motion (LM) guides, tool turrets and spindle heads among other parts should be installed onto the bed, the bed’s precision and durability – compared to other parts - is essential.” That is why Sungwoo, which manufactured beds using the large machine tools of leading foreign companies until six years ago, introduced Doosan’s DCM.

Director Lee said that if a large five-side machine tool offers accuracy to within 0.01mm, then it also offers excellent precision, but adds that the DCM can beat this by offering precision of up to 4 microns (0.004mm). In particular, he added, “The LM guide way, box guide way, and other bed guide ways for axis motion of a machine tool are the criteria that enable all axes (X, Y, Z) to move accurately. Only when the bed’s guide way system is precise can it optimise vertical and horizontal accuracy.”
 

DCM Is Tremendously Helpful!

Sungwoo, using the DCM, focuses on performing the precision-machining of turning center beds, two-spindle beds, and ATC frames. Director Lee, favorably commenting on the DCM as an excellent Doosan product, stated: “The machine tool, as the mother machine for manufacturing other machines, needs each of its parts to be very precise. Before adopting the DCM, we carried out the precision-machining of products using foreign-produced machines and then had to conduct further machining Doosan’s 5-face machining tool, compared to those of other manufacturers, offers excellent durability and still provides stable quality and precision even six years after its purchase.” Director Lee added that, in particular, the DCM not only shortens the existing process of manual surface scrapping, but can also machine five surfaces on one setting, thus boosting productivity and making it unnecessary to change the machining setup due to a change of tools and fixture midway through the machining process, enormously enhancing precision and productivity.
  Sungwoo was greatly satisfied with the DCM because of its production process. Director Lee stated, “In order to know whether a work piece was properly machined, the output needed to be attached to the machine to be tested. We machine beds and test them in our machine tool assembly line to check their repeated precision, roundness, and so on.
Because we have obtained satisfactory results with the DCM, we can be confident in its machining accuracy.”
When we outsource the machining of products, it is not easy to promptly check the uniformity of the quality or detect any potential problems with the process. In this regard, Sungwoo’s technology stands out.
This capability is the key to competitiveness in boosting the quality of machined finished products, and creates links to a virtuous circulation of technologies.
Sungwoo aims to become the world’s top assembly and parts manufacturer. Director Lee said, “The machine tool industry is more important than any other industry, so its workers should be proud of that. However, pride is not something that can be instilled in one day; it can only be felt when we succeed in creating a corporate culture of pride among our employees.”
In particular, Director Lee stated, “Our employees know how our technology can perfect products and help secure competitiveness, so we are particularly keen to instill a sense of pride in the minds of our employees as workers in the machine tool industry.”
As such, many hidden efforts are being made to boost the perfection of machine tools, and the machine tool industry is dedicated to tackle and overcome all difficulties.