French firm uses unique flexible workshop with laser cutter

To solve the problem of fabricating complex sheetmetal parts in small and medium series, Aldes just acquired a flexible line equipped with a laser cutting system that is unique in Europe. A financial risk (the total investment amounts to FF 6 million) and a technical risk as well, as many pieces of equipment are prototypes. But that was the only way to solve the company's many problems: it had a finished-product catalog of 2,500 items, including 1,500 just for network accessories (tees, connection joints). The latter, which include characteristic intersecting cylinders, used to be manufactured on request in a sheetwork shop: they were hand-drawn from a template, cut with shears and a nibbler, rolled, welded and profiled. An artisanal job involving a lot of in-process inventories, average production times of one week, and a demand that could vary in the ratio of one to two. The requirement analysis revealed a production of 3,000 cylinders per day, for over 100 different orders, to be completed in 24 to 48 hours.