Lantek reinforces its OEM collaboration policy -Open systems the route to the Smart Factory-

                                  Photo provided by OEM Danobat Group

Article contributed by: Francisco Perez, Lantek’s OEM channel Director explains the history and the plans for the future.

Neutral worldwide support

Key to this policy is a neutral stance by Lantek for its OEM partners, giving them the confidence to trust it with information about the individual technology advances each is working to develop. To facilitate this way of working Lantek set up a special department purely to manage all the different OEMs it now supports – over 150 – giving each of them individual attention for their projects and supporting them in their implementation and market roll-out to ensure the technology works as intended and, that their customers are happy with the results. An important element in the success of this process is the 20 offices in 14 countries and the dealer networks spread across 100 countries which Lantek can put at the disposal of its OEM partners to provide the professional support that the industry expects. Park Jung-sik Chief Marketing Officer of HK Laser in Korea gives an example, “Lantek Korea engineers have been well received by our customers, providing technical support to fully link the Smart Factory system with HK equipment. Recently, we have found that many more small and medium-sized Korean sheet metal processing companies are becoming very interested in linking MES and ERP.”

So far in 2021, Lantek has considerably grown the number of OEM partnerships compared to 2020, which was to be expected. However, importantly, OEM partnerships have also grown compared to 2019 and pre-pandemic levels, with a rise of 16%, resulting in sales increasing through OEM channels by 41% over the same period.

Long-term experience and hard work are the key for sheet metal software development.

Anyone who has been involved in software development will know that it is a long and complex process with many iterations to arrive at a functional and reliable solution.

Lantek has been developing its sheet metal CAM, ERP and MES software for 35 years. Occasionally there are breakthroughs where rapid innovations can be made, but mostly, its innovations come from long hours working in partnership with sheet metal manufacturers and machine tool builders and incorporating their requirements while anticipating in which direction the industry is heading. To be able to provide features and innovations that really add value for customers a prerequisite is thorough industry and sector knowledge and experience. This knowledge and experience can only be acquired after years working in partnership with machine tool builders. Karsten Kreusch, Product Manager CNC Systems at Bosch Rexroth says, “We have been working together with Lantek to provide a complete solution for the laser market, where the machine tool builder can have the hardware and software needed for controlling his new machine.”

Special collaborative projects

Over the years, Lantek has developed software to support many new devices and technologies including bevelling, drilling, inkjet/laser marking, pallet handling, etc. As these technologies became more common in the market Lantek implemented generic solutions so that a range of different machines with these capabilities could be driven from Lantek’s standard Expert CAM software simply by configuring the postprocessor to suit the requirements of each machine.

Overall, there are hundreds of these functions which we have developed in collaboration with our OEM partners. Many are now part of the standard Lantek Expert system and, as new machine models have been developed, we have customised postprocessors for each of them, irrespective of the OEM, giving Lantek probably the largest library of postprocessors in the industry.

Recent projects have included collaboration with OEMs on collision avoidance on their fibre lasers. Our partner, Danobat, is an example where we helped it in programming its coil laser cutting machines. Xabier Peñaranda, Technical Manager for Danobat explains, “It is well known that a moving sheet has always been challenging in cutting applications, so when we started the development of laser coil machines where sheet movement is the base of the machine definition, it was clear that special cutting routines were needed to avoid collisions. Thanks to the collaboration with Lantek, we have been able to create a reliable cutting solution where the cutting trajectories and sheet advancements are combined in a such a way that no collisions appear during hundreds of metres of coil processing, with no human intervention at all in the programming step.”

Automation for sheet metal machinery is now very common and is an area where we collaborated with Euromac. Ferran Villanueva, Euromac’s Sales Director, says, “Euromac is continuing with the evolution of its punching and bending systems, offering new developments and automation options which improve productivity for our customers. Our joint collaboration with Lantek on new palletisation systems based on gantry devices and vision system robots has enabled total automation of the punching and unloading process for sheet metal parts."

Tube cutting is now a rapidly growing technology in the sheet metal industry. Again, Lantek has extensive experience collaborating with leading companies in the industry such as Han’s Laser to develop advances which deliver economies in material usage, the ability to handle new 4X/5X cutting heads and new chuck devices for managing new tube and beam formats. Flame Chen, CEO of Han’s Laser says, “For all the years we have been working with Lantek, they have been truly helpful, supportive and innovative. Their products and solutions offer great flexibility and openness with powerful performance. Also, the service they’ve provided exhibits particular expertise and professionalism. The cooperation between Lantek and Han’s Laser has been strong and steady, and we would like to work together with them to keep this relationship as strong and steady as possible.”

Move towards the Smart Factory

For much of its history of software development, Lantek has been evaluating and working towards the concept of a Smart Factory. Now along with the evolution of Industry 4.0 and the challenges created by the pandemic this technology is becoming mainstream. Companies of all sizes are examining how it can be used for their application. Lantek has a clear advantage here for sheet metal manufacturers with its mature products which include Lantek MES, and Lantek Analytics designed specifically for the sheet metal industry. For OEMs these changes in the market are equally important as sheet metal manufacturers will want to integrate their machinery with their customers’ business systems.

Collaborating with Lantek is now going a stage further for OEMs as we can supply the tools and the technology for integration at a much deeper level, connecting machine performance with the KPIs that manufacturers want to monitor.

Now, Lantek enters a new phase fully committed to these OEM relationships and to software developments for future technology, moving them on at a faster pace. A continuous stream of new ideas and increased financial muscle assures a rapid development path for the industry. These advances include artificial intelligence and machine learning which are set to revolutionise working practices across the sector. There is little doubt that closed software systems of the past are now not fit for purpose and that the future is for open technology, making collaboration with as many OEMs as possible crucial to the future of the industry and the move towards the Smart Factory.