As a supplier in metalworking, Platteau specialises in producing exclusive piecework. The company develops and manufactures piecework for various applications including textiles, transport and the printing industry. Platteau is also a major supplier for the machine design, engineering and construction for various industries and applications.
The company benefits from more than 50 years of experience and know-how. In order to satisfy customer requirements, we mainly focus on unique and complex piecework in small series. In this way, the piecework can be produced completely to customer requirements and the employees are involved in order to bring in the best of their expertise. To meet the high quality that customers expect from Platteau, the company is equipped with a modern and extensive machine park.
Pieter Cappoen, Business Manager: "As supplier, Platteau specialises in piecework. Not surprisingly this is where the company differentiates itself from other suppliers in the region. It allows the employees to be busy with programming and creative tasks for the majority of their time. That’s what they like to do and what we’re happy to make known. Of course, our customers also occasionally ask us for series production: that means a few dozen or exceptionally, a few hundred pieces of the same component. You can imagine that our operators are not overly excited about this, because they see it especially as monotonous, physical work. But it's hard to turn down assignments, and so we had to find a solution. That's why we went looking for automation. This way our staff can fully focus on creative thinking.
That automation had to meet a number of requirements: first and foremost was our basic principle that programming had to be learned quickly. In addition, the automation must also be able to be engaged for a variety of components: axes were a necessity, just like flanges. When doing this we also had to take into account a large diversity in weights and dimensions. Finally, we were looking for an automation which is extremely compact: the aisles are quite narrow in our production hall and there is little room to place a robot.
Eventually we met up with RoboJob at a workshop at the VDAB in Ypres. There, we saw the new axis extension on a Turn-Assist 250. RoboJob’s sales team showed us how quickly it can fully be installed, programmed and started. We were immediately impressed.
So we quickly decided to buy the Turn-Assist 250 with axis extension. This solution corresponded perfectly with our needs: we can automate both axes as well as flanges, and using our robot we can easily automate workpieces from 0 to 70kg, from very small to very large dimensions. The whole is not only extremely compact; also the fence with light screen was customized to lose as little space as possible. In practice, the compactness and accessible safety are proving to be a great asset, despite the large robot.
The installation on our Mazak Quick Turn Nexus 350 M took less than a workweek to complete, and also the assistance in the start-up went very smoothly. Our operators got used to it very quickly and the Turn-Assist 250 is now running like an express train. Finally, we are very satisfied with the service of RoboJob, despite the relatively large distance between Heist-op-den-Berg (Antwerp province) and our factory in Poperinge (West Flanders)."
A Tower was also installed at Platteau in 2021. It was installed on a Mazak Integrex J-200 S.
