Quick Change Fasteners Slash Changeover Time by 1/2!

Toyokawa Engineering manufactures testing equipment for automotive parts and they use IMAO's Quarter Turn Fasteners on the fixtures in their equipment. They designed the fixture to be able to hold several workpieces at a time to fit the user's needs.

Setups for changing fixture parts come out every changeover depending on workpieces. The user required Toyokawa the swift changeovers of fixtures they do over 2 times a day. That's why Toyokawa decided to use IMAO's Quarter Turn Fasteners that shorten the setup time by clamping with just a 90 degrees turn of the knob.

In the previous testing equipment, the user fixed the parts with screws and knobs and it took more than 1 minute for changeover. With Quarter Turn Fasteners, changeover of fixture takes only 30 seconds.

Toyokawa highly esteems the quick & easy operation of IMAO's tool-less clamps, wide variation of line ups and their ready availability of IMAO's standard products as a manufacturer of standard machine elements. Toyokawa will keep using Quarter Turn Fasteners for their equipment in the future.

Panasonic Eco Solutions Electrical Construction Materials Mie Co., Ltd. manufactures intercom and fire alarm for home and they use IMAO's Quarter Turn Fasteners on injection molding line for the resin products. They cut the resin burr on back of the post-molded products by a nipper.

Setups for changing the nipper and its position come out every mold change because the position of the burr is different product by product. In the previous line, they used the general-purpose nipper units for all products and it took more than 15 minutes to loosen screws, change nippers and adjust positions. They needed to change the mold more than 50 times per month for some machines.

They decided to use dedicated nipper units for each product and clamp the units with Quarter Turn Fasteners to reduce machine downtime and set-up time. As a result, the changeover of units takes only 1 minute with One-touch fasteners, Quarter Turn Fasteners. Furthermore, the visible clamping and unclamping states by the position of the knob increased safety on their plant.

They will continue to improve production system by shortening the time for operation and changeover.

Iwata Mfg, Co., Ltd. manufactures machine components such as set collars and sensor brackets and they use IMAO's Ball-Lock Clamps and Button-Locking Pins to replace fixtures of automated production machines to assemble screws to the machinery parts body (hereinafter called "workpiece").

Previously, this work was done by a person but because of the high labor costs and the worker's mental burden for continuing simple tasks, they designed their own automated machine for purpose of reducing costs and mechanization of the simple work. This application requires "changeovers" which replace various fixtures depending on the workpiece around 10 times a day since this machine produces many products with different shapes and sizes, so they decided to use IMAO's One-Touch Fasteners to reduce the workloads.

In the process of setting the workpiece that was placed in a free direction to the right position, they clamp the workpiece from either side using an air cylinder with the plastic pad and adjust it by rotating. They use Ball-lock Clamps to fix the pad to replace 11 types of plastic pads depending on the form and size of the workpiece.

In another process of assembling screws to the workpiece, depending on the screw size, there are 5 kinds of holders for carrying screws and guides for preventing screws from dropping, and they can be quickly replaced by using the Button-Locking Pins. These fasteners only require inserting the pin or pushing the button, so the changeover can be completed easily and in a short time.

The easy changeover process also reduces the machine operator's workload, as there are many parts that need to be replaced in a single changeover. They will keep continuing the development of automated machines that allow quick and easy changeovers to reduce the costs and the workloads.

Cosel Co., Ltd. manufactures "switching power supplies" that are indispensable for electronic products and they use IMAO's Quarter Turn Fasteners on assembly fixtures. They set the electronic substrate on the base plate and put the resin case. Set the clamping plate on the base plate, clamp, pour silicone rubber, and then do heat hardened treatment. They use Quarter Turn Fasteners when fixing the resin case with the clamping plate.

They used to use self-produced clamps, so a lot of cost and production time was required. In addition, they often stopped the production line for repairing the damaged clamps due to the loosening screws caused by heat hardening distention. A total of 80 fixtures are used per the assemble product in their production line, so they decided to use Quarter Turn Fasteners to achieve cost reduction and maintenance-free of the fixtures.

Furthermore, the tool-less and quick clamping Quarter Turn Fasteners were perfect for the workability since they produce approx. 200 products per day. By using Quarter Turn Fasteners, they succeeded in not only reducing the fixture cost by 70% but also have been using more than 2 years without any maintenance that previously needed once a week.

Cosel who has achieved great success by standardizing the clamps will positively keep using IMAO's One-Touch Fasteners for the ones needing quick clamping.