We just finished converting a 600-ton mechanical press line to servo for automotive body panels. 18-month project. Here's the full story.
Our automotive case study documents a 600-ton mechanical-to-servo conversion at a Tier 1 supplier. The numbers are impressive —62% scrap reduction, 38% energy savings —but every conversion has its own story.
What the article doesn't cover in detail is the human side of the conversion. The biggest resistance we faced wasn't technical —it was the press operators. Guys who'd been running mechanical presses for 15-20 years suddenly had to learn touchscreen programming, motion profiles, and force monitoring. The first month was rough. Production dropped 30% while the team got up to speed. By month three, they were exceeding the old line's output, and by month six, the operators were the biggest advocates for the new presses.
The other thing worth mentioning: die modifications. You can't just drop your existing dies into a servo press and expect magic. We had to rework about 40% of our dies to take advantage of the programmable motion —adjusting draw depths, adding dwell stations, changing blank holder geometry. That rework cost wasn't in the original budget and added about $180K to the project.
I'd love to hear from others who've done conversions:
- What was your payback period? Our case hit 2.8 years —is that typical?
- How did you handle operator training? In-house or vendor-provided?
- Did you convert all at once or phase it in? We did two presses at a time, which I'd recommend.
- Any conversion horror stories? Things that went wrong that you didn't anticipate?
The more conversion data points we collect as a community, the better we can help shops planning their own transitions.
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\n**Edit:** added the final scrap rate numbers now that we have 6 months of production data.