Timeka Oy produces comprehensive solutions by extensively utilising various manufacturing processes in its own production. With the BLM Group Adige LT8.20 Fiber tube laser, which joined the company’s arsenal last summer, this Mynämäki-based operator is now able to offer tube and profile further processing work even more comprehensively, efficiently and flexibly.
Timeka Oy is a machine workshop founded in 2000, but the company’s history dates back all the way to the 1970s. In recent years, the company has progressed on a strong upward trajectory. During the past two years, turnover has grown from € 6.8 million to the record figure of € 8.4 million achieved in the previous financial year. Managing Director Marko Setälä forecasts that this year the company will reach turnover of € 9 million. These figures are achieved with approximately 60 employees, who provide services in 8,000 m² production facilities. – At the moment, the pace is good and our production is running in two shifts and partly in three shifts. Our order book is also now record-long. The biggest obstacles to growth are related to the availability of new labour. The availability of materials and their sharp price increases also currently create their own challenges, says Setälä.
“A one-stop shop for manufacturing servicese”
Timeka’s customer register consists of several hundred customers, of which Setälä classifies approximately 100 as active customers. Of these one hundred, around forty generate the majority of the company’s turnover. – Our customer base broadly represents different industries. Breadth is also the foundation of what we do, as we aim to produce products and assemblies with the highest possible degree of further processing by utilising all manufacturing processes, all the way to painted and assembled deliveries. In summary, one could say that we are a full-service department store. Our strengths are highlighted in work that requires as many different manufacturing processes as possible, Setälä explains.
– With our self-sufficient production, we ensure reliable schedules, flexible delivery times and high quality. Thanks to our self-sufficient production and strong reliance on ERP, we deliver 15,000–30,000 pieces on a monthly basis, Setälä clarifies.
Timeka’s production therefore includes all manufacturing processes: sheet metal and welding work, machining, and its own paint shop. The company strengthened its machining capacity through an acquisition made last year. – We are now able to offer machining also for large-series production work, whereas previously we focused in manufacturing on single pieces and small series.
The typical part size manufactured by Timeka is under 100 kg. However, larger parts are also possible; the upper limit for part size is defined by the paint shop, where parts can be painted up to a maximum length of four metres and a weight of up to 3,000 kg.
Investments supporting growth
According to Setälä, investments have acted as an enabler of strong growth. During the past six years, Timeka has invested EUR 5 million in machining, sheet metal and welding equipment. The most significant recent investment is the BLM Adige LT8.20 Fiber, a 4 kW fiber laser.
BLM Adige eliminating a bottleneck on the sheet metal fabrication side
The BLM Adige LT8.20 Fiber, which arrived last June to diversify Timeka’s production, has according to Setälä brought significant additional capability, speed, accuracy and versatility to the company’s production. – The Adige tube laser makes our production even more self-sufficient and expands our offering both to our existing customers and in new customer acquisition. Adige is also one answer to the prevailing shortage of skilled labour, as it frees sheet metal fabricators for other tasks, while Adige is capable of cutting, bevelling, drilling, tapping and marking parts. Thanks to its versatility, Adige also brings significant efficiency and speed to our production. For example, in one frame job involving straight cutting, drilling and hole punching, the lead time dropped from eight hours to one and a half hours.
Finland’s first 7-station automatic drilling and tapping unit
The BLM Adige LT8.20 Fiber 4 kW fiber laser is equipped with a 3D cutting head, which enables versatile cutting operations. The machine can cut bevels as well as more demanding profile shapes. Adige is therefore well suited for cutting round, square, rectangular, special and open profiles.
Timeka’s Adige fiber laser has double-sided loading for 6.5 m long materials. From the rear side of the machine, full bundles can be loaded, from which one tube or profile at a time is automatically loaded onto the machine with minimised waiting time. From the front side, individual tubes and profiles can be loaded automatically using a so-called step loader. This model has two independent loading devices, which in the Adige can be freely positioned at the front or rear: the alternatives are bundle loading, step loading and single-tube loading.
On the unloading side of the machine, cut tubes and profiles can be unloaded to the front side in lengths of up to 6.5 m and to the rear side in lengths of up to 4.5 m. In addition, there are various sorting addresses for small parts. The system also includes short-part unloading, a scrap unloading conveyor, and motorised tables at the front and rear.
The machine can process round tubes with diameters from 12 mm up to 240 mm. Timeka’s Adige is the first in Finland to be equipped with a 7-station automatic drilling and tapping unit, which can be used for drilling, flow drilling and tapping from M4 to M12.
Active Scan scans material bending and twisting
Timeka’s Adige fiber laser is equipped with the Active Scan feature, which scans material bending and twisting. This compensates for possible material errors during cutting, enabling the machine, for example, to identify the correct position of the corners of a square tube and to carry out the cut in the correct location despite the material error. More information is available online at https://youtu.be/4tjBaUvlvRE.
The Active Weld feature, in turn, measures the position and size of the longitudinal weld seam in the tube material by imaging it. This allows the machine, when cutting at the seam location, to automatically use higher power, thereby ensuring reliable penetration of the cut.
The Active Tilt feature brings speed to cutting operations involving small movements as well as to marking. These can be viewed at https://youtu.be/TvfBLE2w3sw.
The software used in BLM-Adige machines is also worth mentioning. Its ease of use and the handling of individual parts or complete structures take place in a 3D environment. The software compensates for the elongations caused by bends in the final product. In other words, holes made in the material while it is still straight are also in the correct positions after bending.
Adige enables the creation of various joint geometries, which can, for example, eliminate the use of jigs in the welding department. This substantially shortens production lead times. The software’s production control system calculates the most economical nesting sequence for parts in order to minimise waste, and also calculates part prices to support quotation preparation.
A carefully considered decision
The acquisition of a new tube laser was the result of lengthy consideration for Timeka, as it had already been mentioned in the 2018 business plan. – There are not many tube lasers in this region. In this sector as well, we were largely dependent on subcontractors, which can cause scheduling problems. On 17 June 2021, these uncertainty factors were eliminated when the BLM Adige fiber laser joined our arsenal, Setälä explains regarding the background to the acquisition.
– We assessed that the manufacturer of Adige, BLM Group, has strong expertise as a producer of this type of machine, and that they also have high-quality bending machine capacity that can be integrated to operate seamlessly together with the Adige fiber laser. BLM Group also promised, more clearly than its competitors, to deliver the specifications we had presented — without any “if” clauses. For example, on the software side, Adige offers a great deal of added value, reflecting BLM Group’s long accumulated experience in the field, Setälä continues.
– Overall, we can give full marks both to the Italian-made Adige machine and to its supplier, Fredko. Fredko has proven to be a committed machine supplier that responds quickly and professionally to our needs. As a machine, Adige has brought us significant competitiveness and strengthens our position as a partner for highly value-added products for our principals. Now our task is to spread awareness of the capabilities of the Adige fiber laser, as it brings many new opportunities, including for designers, to consider manufacturing products in a different way than before, Setälä concludes.
