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www.CNC-West.com CNC WEST June/July 2020
Bystronic Reaches Major Milestone With First U.S. Assembled BySmart Fiber Laser Machine
Introducing the first fully-assembled BySmart Fiber 3015 laser cutting machine at the Hoffman Estates USA facility.
Bystronic achieved a major milestone in the USA as the first-ever laser cutting machine assembled at the new facility in Hoffman Estates IL has rolled off the line. This important milestone strengthens Bystronic’s commitment to its customers and to the North American market by pro- viding locally assembled machinery to reduce overall lead time, installation time, and import costs.
By assembling laser cutting machines in the USA, Bys- tronic is further developing its market leading presence and operations network. Specifically, the next generation BySmart Fiber 3015 laser cutting machine, now with un- precedented 8kW and 10kW Fiber laser power, is the first machine to be locally produced in the three major market regions of the world: North America, Europe, and Asia, thus strengthening Bystronic’s global product availability and supply chain diversification.
The next generation BySmart Fiber will be shipped virtually fully assembled to most locations within North America. This process will reduce the installation time at the customer’s location by as much as 65%. Also, the ma- chines will be 100% inspected and tested in the U.S. plant before shipment, which ensures that production will be up and running shortly after the installation is complete. Cus- tomer delivery lead times will also be reduced significantly.
The current plan is that from this fall 2020, the next generation BySmart Fiber 4020 will also be assembled at the U.S. facility.
From the very beginning, it was the goal of Bystronic to use the best practices from the manufacturing plants in Switzerland, Germany, and China in this new facility. The assembly area is laid out as a ‘lean flow’ line. Using this con- cept, the base machine frame starts at one end of the line, is assembled in stages, and the finished machine exits at the end of the line, much in the way cars are assembled. Components and sub-assemblies are brought to the production line in a “just in time” fashion to complete the machine.
Bystronic will locally source machine components and sub-assemblies as economically practical. They have already identified suppliers for the mainframe, housing, dust tray, la- ser source and other components, and orders have already been placed with these vendors. Many of these vendors are current Bystronic customers and will be using Bystronic ma- chinery to produce the parts.
The newly built Hoffman Estates facility will include a leading-edge Customer Experience Center and the head- quarters for the Americas market region. It will serve as the hub for Bystronic U.S. business operations including sales, service, training, spare parts, and the refurbishing of used machinery.
Currently, Bystronic employs approximately 160 em- ployees in the U.S., with a notable increase planned within this year and beyond as more products are added for U.S. assembly. The total area of the new building is 164,894 sq. ft. The total area for machine assembly and parts warehousing