chainflex CC – the new production concept for custom cables from igus: custom cables configured online in minutes, batch sizes from 300m, manufactured in just three weeks
igus has long been known as an expert in the field of flexible cables and energy chain cable carriers. igus has been developing and manufacturing its chainflex range of dynamic electrical cables since 1989. Using certain design principles, chainflex cables are manufactured to work in constant flexing automation and robotic applications, and are guaranteed to last millions of cycles.
The chainflex standard cable range has grown steadily and now includes more than 950 types from stock including control, power, motor, servo, encoder and BUS.
Despite this, there is an increasingly important place for custom cables to be made to very specific customer requirements, and requests from the market are showing a growing demand for such cables. In addition, the demand is often for smaller batch quantities.
Justin Leonard, product director at igus explains the driver behind this, and the novel approach igus took to meeting the need.
The growing demand for low volume custom cables
Competitiveness and productivity have always been drivers in manufacturing. However, the economic downturn from 2008 has meant ‘lean’ methods and processes have become ever more popular to achieve this. Increasingly, customised systems and machinery help reduce delivery time and cost, whilst allowing more flexibility of supply. Commonly this means there is a demand for customised components, often at low volumes, but requiring fast delivery.
As early as 2007 igus started fundamentally rethinking the chainflex cable product range, in order to meet the changing needs of its machine building customers.
The requirements can range from just a special outer jacket colour, for example to conform to the design or brand of the machine, right up to special combinations of shielding, jacket material and stranding, essentially making a completely new cable type.
The goal for igus became the introduction of a modular design and manufacture concept for its chainflex cables to meet these needs. This became the chainflex CC (chainflex Custom Configurator) concept.
Current market limitations for custom cables
The marketplace does currently offer custom cables, but until today such offerings have often had major disadvantages.
Firstly, long lead times of 20 weeks or more are common due to the highly involved design and manufacture processes. Secondly, because cable production is based around a continuous flow production process, minimum order quantities of thousands of metres are common. Finally, the cost of such special design and non-serial manufacturing processes is high for small volumes required by the end customer.
If the lead time and cost become prohibitive, the customer must often use a standard cable, or even multiple cables, that doesn’t exactly meet their requirement.
“We know from many discussions with users, that such compromises can effect the durability and reliability of a cable, as well as generally increasing the cost”, said Leonard “and for those exact reasons we decided to develop the chainflex CC (Custom Configurator) concept.”
At the heart of this concept is a new approach to cable production.
The chainflex SFP system
The technical design of chainflex was updated so that individual components can be used in a modular fashion, in a variety of different chainflex cable series. This allowed igus to address the demand for more customised products without incurring increases in costs. At igus, this principle is called the ‘semi finished product’ system (SFP). Today, all igus cables are manufactured in accordance with this principle.
This involves the manufacture of many subcomponents in large volumes, which are then temporarily stored and ultimately combined into a final finished product in just a few short weeks after the order has been received. In this way time- and cost -intensive production is always done in large volumes to be efficient.
The SFP process thus allows igus to keep costs low for finished products, in spite of increasing raw material prices.
This system enables igus to ensure a 97.2% on-time delivery, and therefore to keep its delivery commitment ‘within 24 hours’ for more than 950 standard chainflex cables.
However, the SFP process really comes into its own for very fast production of low batch quantities, down to 300m, without big increases in the cost.
chainflex CC – fast online configuration
The chainflex Custom Configurator (CC) concept is built around an online interface that allows the user to develop their custom cable quickly, easily and directly. The tool can be used with no prior registration and is to be found at www.igus.co.uk/chainflexCC
The user selects from the following range of options, as they construct their desired cable:
• Cable type, for example:
– BUS
– Control
– Data
– Measuring system
– Motor
– Servo
• BUS protocol, where required, for example:
– Profibus
– CAN bus
– Cat5/GigE
• Number of cores/cross section combination
• Overall shield, if required
• Inner insulation type, for example:
– Pressure filled inner jacket
– Film
•w Outer jacket material, from the following:
– PVC
– PVC (oil resistant)
– PUR (halogen free)
– PUR (halogen free and flame retardant)
– TPE (halogen free)
– TPE (flame retardant)
• Outer jacket colour, specified by RAL number
• Custom printing required on the outer jacket
• Required quantity, starting from just 300m
The combination of standardised options in the above fields gives an almost unlimited choice of options for the customer.
The resulting proposal includes the actual price and can be ordered right away. From then, the manufacture of the custom cable is started and completed in around 3 weeks.
In the event that the desired custom cable can’t be defined from the available combinations, a simple online request can be sent to the chainflex team from within the online tool.
Tested, tested, tested
Before being release into the standard range of chainflex cables, every cable type is exhaustively tested in the igus laboratory, which has an area of more than 1,500m2. The spectrum of test facilities used for this qualification includes a high and low temperature climatic chamber, anechoic noise measurement room, full six-axis robots and other torsion machines, test benches for dynamic simulations of bending and flexing, outer jacket abrasion test and even outdoor test units for very long energy chain travels. All of this quality testing also applies to the standardized production system of the new chainflex CC, and can even be supplied with a functional guarantee.
For more information or to request a chainflex catalogue or sample, please contact igus UK:
01604 677240
[email protected]
www.igus.co.uk