27 Apr Holmatro hydraulic equipment team up celebrate ESPRIT partnership
Hydraulic equipment manufacturer Holmatro has celebrated its partnership with ESPRIT to create life saving equipment.
Countless fire, police, and other first response organisations around the world count on Holmatro to equip them with the most reliable and efficient tools available. To satisfy these demands, Holmatro has relied on ESPRIT for more than two decades to help them with an efficient manufacturing process, which allows them to machine more features in a single operation.
Since 1999, Holmatro has been using ESPRIT to manufacture hydraulic rescue equipment including cutters and spreaders, as well as cylinders, plungers, check valves, and more from aluminium, steel, and exotic alloys. Although the Holmatro name is most often associated with hydraulic rescue equipment, the brand makes complex parts for many demanding industries, including railways and energy.
Chuck Cain, Manufacturing Engineer at Holmatro, said: “We periodically check in with our team to ensure ESPRIT is evolving with our needs. ESPRIT was very good at multi-function machining when we bought it in 1999. A few years ago, we reviewed many other CAM packages to evaluate if we were keeping up with the times. After many demos, we concluded that ESPRIT was still the best choice for us. We ended up adding multiple seats of ESPRIT to our facility in the Netherlands.”
Currently Holmatro’s US headquarters is home to more than 30 CNC machines, ranging from 9-axis mill-turn to 5-axis simultaneous equipment, mostly made by Mori Seiki and Okuma. This highly specialised company uses incredibly demanding processes to get the job done. Chuck explained: “The parts that we manufacture are complex due to the nature of manufacturing parts to such close tolerances. A typical product will have tolerances not to exceed 30 microns. We also have many products with 20-micron [.0007 inches] tolerances.”
Chuck and his team regularly use ESPRIT to manufacture new fixtures and program parts on their 5-axis milling machines in record time. “We were able to save approximately 30 minutes per part by utilising a 3+2 machining mentality. ProfitMilling also helped with cycle time reduction,” he said..
In recent years, the team at Holmatro has also been interested in exploring how automation could improve their efficiency and, ultimately, their bottom line. Chuck shared: “Right now, our main focus is on enhancing production with unattended machining. We always look for ways to avoid handling parts more than once or twice. We also strive to manufacture complete parts in one sequence of events.
“With ESPRIT, we are able to manufacture the fixture components in a short time.”
The team at Holmatro shares a singular vision of improving their product offerings delivering them to the public faster and at a reasonable price point thanks to improved efficiency. Chuck explained how efficiency isn’t just limited to manufacturing processes: “The future of our company is about manufacturing new products and providing our customers with the quality they expect in as few operations as possible.
“This philosophy is especially true for our first responders. We strive to provide solutions that allow the rescue team to use the least amount of equipment as possible while still being effective.”