E.S. Tooling n.v.
When Erik Schildermans and his wife started E.S. Tooling n.v. just under ten years ago, their goal was clear – “We wanted to create a company where we could work like employees”.
The company is totally directed at the production of accurate and complex parts, as a subcontractor to demanding customers in the optics industry, for example. 90% of orders are for a single part. Parts that many other don’t dare to make.
Erik Schildermans: “However high-class our machines, the company’s most important asset is its workforce.”
And E.S. Tooling is well worth a visit. Attractive premises, where the last extension was completed during 2002. Naturally, the entire workshop is climate-controlled to 20 degrees Celsius, neither more nor less, summer and winter alike. And there are few firms with a better range of machines. Here, they have first Agiecut Vertex in the Benelux countries, for instance.
Erik Schildermans explains – “Yes, we have excellent machines, but however good your machines, it’s the eleven employees who are the company’s real asset. That’s why we invest heavily in our personnel, not just in training but in everything that goes to create the team spirit which is so essential in a demanding operation such as ours.”
The first automatic production cell
“However good your personnel and your machine,” Schildermans continues, “the business has to perform well in financial terms, and one good measure of its health is the number of spindle hours we achieve. And we didn’t clock up as many spindle hours as we would have liked.”
So in 2003 they installed their first automated production cell. A three-axis DMG 50V was upgraded with a WorkPal Compact with space for six GPS 240 pallets in the magazine. And the result was quick in coming: it wasn’t long before they had almost doubled the number of spindle hours on that machine.
“There’s no doubt about it,” declares Schildermans. “Automation is the way to go!” “Soon we’ll be investing to develop the business further, with higher spindle hours and better competitiveness. We have in mind a double cell with two new five-axis machines served by a WorkMaster, as well as an upgrade to the coordinate measuring machine and the first cell. And above all: System 3R’s WorkShopManager production control system.”
Erik Schildermans continues – “I have a vision of the machines producing round the clock, whether or not there are people in the workshop. The operators program, prepare and load the magazines. The machines produce. The employees are present for a limit time, but are available 24 hours a day. If a problem arises, the automatic cell sends a text message, for example, to the duty operator, who takes appropriate action. Via remote control or on site.”
In 2004, Erik Schildermans received the Hermes prize for successful enterprise from the hand of Crown Prince Filip of Belgium. Proof that his determined work has won appreciation far beyond the core activity.
printer friendly version
Related links:
WorkPal Compact Servo
WorkMaster
WorkShopManager
Automation in general
GPS 240