"We take pride in being an agile and responsive company," says Maxime Berube, General Manager of KOMASPEC. "Our systems and training are designed to support rapid execution. This allows us to meet our customers’ expectations with high quality, competitive pricing and just-in-time delivery."

Agile and responsive

Pioneering the path to manufacturing intelligence is KOMASPEC, a leading Canadian-owned contract manufacturer, established in 2005 and based in Guangzhou, southern China. The company specialises in metal and plastic components for international brands and OEMs, shipping millions of products every year.

From just five employees, KOMASPEC has grown to a team of more than 200 people. The company has three manufacturing facilities, one focusing on sheet metal fabrication, another on plastic and metal parts production, and a third on final product assembly, with a combined total floor space of 93,000 sq ft. Maxime Berube, KOMASPEC General Manager, has his own insights into why the company has achieved such strong results.

In-house manufacturing

“We differentiate ourselves by manufacturing most of our parts in-house. This approach gives us control over timelines and cost, and allows our engineering team to have a deep understanding of the manufacturing processes and design. If we can provide information in real time to our MES and ERP, we can provide the information in real time to the relevant people. One critical step to achieve this is for our equipment to be connected to our MES system and this is possible with LVD equipment.”

Conor Moore, KOMASPEC’s Sales Manager adds: “Our success is also owed to the support of our partner LVD. In the past, we faced a lot of issues with inconsistent machine performance, lots of downtime versus production time and just the quality of the first parts was not as good as what we’re seeing with LVD now.”

Accuracy and reduced setup time

“The turning point came during a random equipment test. KOMASPEC was in search of a high-precision bending machine that could meet the stringent accuracy and performance requirements right from the initial part production. After testing LVD’s Easy-Form® press brake, we realised that its angular and dimensional accuracy, along with its repeatability, exceeded our expectations. Also, the ability to extract data from the machine and the CADMAN® software suite were very powerful,” says Maxime.

“LVD’s cost savings are evident, firstly through the accuracy of their bending system and its adaptability to material variations, ensuring the first piece is a finished product and batch sizes are highly consistent,” he continues.

Says Conor: “LVD’s CADMAN software solutions, such as CADMAN-B for bending and CADMAN-L for laser cutting, reduced our average setup time by around 30 to 40%. Because we do a lot of parts every year, this really adds up to a lot of cost and time savings. Secondly, we have about 15% more machine utilisation. The biggest point is probably the average product development time. We save on average 5 to 7 days every time with LVD because we’re making the parts right the first time and we don’t need to go back and recut parts for a second production.”

Smart Factory integration

In addition to the outstanding performance of the equipment, it was the responsive technical support services provided by the LVD team that led KOMASPEC’s management to choose LVD as their preferred supplier for sheet metal processing equipment: “Our relationship to LVD has been very positive. The quality support, the responsiveness, the consistency of parts have made our life easier by allowing us to focus on running our day-to-day business, growing it and not worrying about machine setup or production problems,” Conor says.

At present, KOMASPEC has two Easy-Form® press brakes, a Dyna-Press press brake, a Phoenix FL-3015 fiber laser cutting machine with LVD equipment is planned. All equipment from LVD can be connected to form a Smart Factory. “Connecting our LVD equipment to the same MES system and continuously monitoring the utility, uptime, expected and actual production of our machines offers us real-time insight into the performance of our processes. It provides quick feedback for timely improvements,” Maxime shares.

“We have also introduced an online sheet metal platform, Komacut, facilitating instant quotes, DFM and online ordering. By extracting data from the networked LVD equipment, we continuously refine and improve the platform, proving particularly beneficial for product pricing and lead time forecasting.”

“CADMAN-B and CADMAN-L reduced our average setup time by around 30 to 40%. Because we do a lot of parts every year, this really adds up to a lot of cost and time savings. Secondly, we have about 15% more machine utilisation.”

Company Profile

Company: KOMASPEC
Established: 2005
Location: Guangzhou, China
Industries served: Agriculture, mining, consumer goods, fitness equipment, automotive, recreational vehicles, construction
Materials: Cold/hot rolled steel, spring steel, aluminium, stainless steel, cold galvanized steel
LVD installations:

  • Easy-Form® 80/15 and 80/25 press brakes
  • Dyna-Press 24/12 press brake
  • Dyna-Press Pro 40/15 press brake
  • Dyna-Cell robotised press brake
  • Phoenix FL-3015 fiber laser with Compact Tower (CT-L)
  • LVD software: CADMAN-B, CADMAN-L, CADMAN-SD

Website: www.komaspec.com