Meeting the demand of a booming auto industry

By Pissanuwat Keowamrat

Thailand has been referred to as the "Detroit of Asia," and so far it really is. The country’s economy has been boosted by the automotive industry, and this year, according the Thai Automobile Industry Association (TAIA), auto production is expected to reach 2.2 million units.

 “The urgent issue right now is capacity. This is especially so now that most flood-affected companies have recovered and people are pushing hard to get parts to feed their production. This is happening across the whole supply chain,” said Tanasak Puttal, Production Unit 1& 2 Manager at GKN Driveline (Thailand). The company is an affiliate of GKN Driveline, and it is a BOI promoted company that has been manufacturing CVJ driveshafts for passenger cars for both the domestic and export markets since 1997.” Our principle customers include Toyota, Nissan, GM, Ford and Auto Alliance,” continued Tanasak, whose career in the auto industry expands for more than 20 years from technician right up to the management level today.

With his long experience in machining automotive parts, Tanasak shared with us his experience of machining automotive parts. “What we need in a situation like this is to increase output from a limited amount of machines and people. Having worked with many suppliers we learnt that vendor support in terms of technical expertise and collaboration are very important, especially in the long term. Walter has proved that they are reliable, we are impressed with the technical support that they provide us allowing us to improve our cutting efficiency, our cycle times and reduce machining costs.” said Tanasak.

 “The auto parts industry is very demanding in terms of capacity, capability and specification requirements, and GKN is not excluded,” said Oliver Zimmerer, Walter’s application engineer manager, who has been working closely with GKN Driveline (Thailand) for a number of years. “So it is very important for us to make sure that we are able to deliver a solution that fulfills the customer’s needs, but just as important is to do it at the right time.”

Tanasak further told us that one of the remarkable successes with working with Walter has been with how they increased productivity while reducing cost through the idea of using common indexable inserts. “In the past we used to have as many as 24 item numbers of cutting tools, and now it has become only two items. The day-to-day routine has become much easier because of the far fewer part numbers means less confusion for the operators. It is also a lot easier manage stock as well,” Tanasak added.

Another key productivity improvement was the switch from the NS6 to NMT inserts that has allowed GKN Driveline (Thailand) to increase daily output by 50%. Tanasak explained that before using the NMT insert from the Tiger·tec-WPP series their process encountered problems with chips that were coiled, long and unbroken, and many times these got stuck in the chip conveyor and the operator had to stop the machine to remove them. “That not only reduced output, but also could cause our operators to get injured too.”

 “The chip fracture behaviour of forged and cold-formed components is as problematic as it is for titanium alloys. The tendency to produce coiled swarf is particularly pronounced for materials such as Cf53, C10 and St37. In addition, material removal for forged parts is often only 1.0 to 2.0 mm, which again impedes chip breakage. In order to break the chip reliably and enhance process reliability, optimised cutting edge geometries are necessary. Therefore Walter developed the new NMT geometry,” explained Oliver Zimmerer. “The main feature of the NMT geometry is the curved cutting edge, whose purpose is to reduce the cutting forces and to prevent variations of the workpiece surface when profiling (e.g. ball joints). Close behind is a closed series of dome-shaped bumps which provide an obstacle for the swarf and deflect it, while simultaneously providing a constriction on the overall cutting depth. Additionally, the cutting edge has been drawn up slightly around the corner radius to enable positive geometry conditions at this point.”

Tanasak also mentioned Walter’s Machine Programmer that helps them to increase their efficiency. He explained that, “Given the machine and the product requirements, this programmer can provide us with the proper machining strategies, tool path, feed rate, cutting depth, etc. We get better cycle times and reduced errors and defects.”

Thanks to the help they have received from Walter in boosting their levels productivity, the company will for the first time ever reach a record of producing one million automotive parts in one year, an historic milestone for GKN Thailand. This is something that really puts a smile on his face.

http://www.industrysourcing.com/ezine/res/14/04/imna.html?pagenum=40

Zeiss expands with metrology competence centre in Malaysia

ZEISS opened an Industrial Metrology Competence Centre in collaboration with the German-Malaysian Institute at the GMI campus in Kajang, Malaysia. International Metalworking News for
Asia attended the grand opening and was able to talk to Manfred Bender, Ven Raman and Ngan Cheng Hwa, deputy managing director (Education & Training). They shared the dynamics of opening a competence centre in Malaysia and its ongoing growth strategy to serve existing and new customers from a wider platform. read more

Small to Medium Enterprises ...Driving Vietnam’s Economy

While visiting the Metalex 2013 exhibition in HCMC, ANTHONY EVANS of International Metalworking News for Asia came across a Hanoi-based company that’s a good example of how the SME sector is powering Vietnam's economy. He caught up with David Nguyen, Hayen’s Business Development manager, to get some information about the company, its products, and how he sees Hayen’s future growth here in Vietnam.read more

Ways to Reduce Metal Corrosion

Metal corrosion is a large and growing problem estimated to cost the global economy $2.2 trillion each year or roughly 3% of gross domestic product, according to World Corrosion Organization. While anti-corrosion technologies have been in development since the early 1900’s, companies must generally decide between spending a lot of money up front to buy better anti-corrosion products, or dealing with subpar products that will require expensive and time-consuming replacement.

Abakan Inc. (ABKI) aims to revolutionize the market by providing the strongest protection against corrosion at a competitive price. Through its 72% interest in Ohio-based MesoCoat, the company provides the PComP™ family of thermally-sprayed nano-composite cermet coatings and the CermaClad™ clad steel products, targeting a wide variety of end markets, ranging from oil and gas to infrastructure customers. Abakan’s current focus is to serve the oil and gas industry, and it comes as no surprise; since more than 70% of the remaining oil and gas reserves are extremely corrosive , making it almost mandatory for oil and gas companies to use high-quality corrosion-resistant products to produce oil and gas from these corrosive reserves.

In this article, we’ll take a look at why investors may want to examine Abakan Inc.’s growing presence in a little known but very large and rapidly growing industry.

Corrosion Resistant Coatings

PComP™ is a family of nano-composite cermet coatings that are used to impart wear and corrosion resistance, as well as restore the dimensions of metal components in an environmentally acceptable manner. PComP™ can also be applied and machined much faster than products based on traditional carbide or other ceramic coatings, resulting in higher productivity and reduced costs in metal finishing operations. The unique structure of the PComP materials enables coatings that are both hard and tough, which means that these coatings can withstand both impact and stress, a feat that none of the other coatings can achieve.

By using proprietary nano-composite materials, the technology provides better wear, corrosion, and mechanical properties at a lower life cycle cost than traditional alternatives in the $32 billion inorganic metal finishing markets, like hard chrome plating and tungsten carbide thermal spray coatings. The EPA also increasingly frowns upon the use of hexavalent chrome and tungsten carbide cobalt.

In a sign of the efficacy of their product line, Abakan already has the several oilfield equipment manufacturers as customers. While PComP™ is already commercially available in numerous end markets; MesoCoat plans to expand geographically and set thermal spray coating facilities to better serve the higher margin, regional customers that don’t have the capacity to coat their own products.

Innovative Cladding Process
CermaClad™ combines the lower cost of carbon steel clad with better properties of a corrosion resistant alloy in order to offer a lower cost and higher performance alternative for critical oil and gas assets. Using a high-intensity arc lamp, the proprietary process rapidly fuses protective, proprietary anti-corrosion and anti-wear cladding materials onto the internal surface of steel pipes and tubes, covering a large surface area; coating at production rates up to 20 times faster compared to conventional weld overlay and laser cladding technologies.

CermaClad™ clad products costs less than a third of solid anti-corrosion alloy alternatives since it deposits only a thin layer of the anti-corrosion alloy on top of the inexpensive but strong carbon steel substrate, and the strong bond formed between the carbon steel and alloy in the process makes it a more durable alternative than other cladding processes. In fact, the technology boasts an average lifespan of 30 to 100 years without maintenance, which helps customers lower costs and avoid expensive accidents.

On March 13, 2014, MesoCoat received the highly prestigious National Association of Corrosion Engineers (“NACE”) and Materials Performance (“MP”) Corrosion Innovation of the Year Award in the Coatings and Linings Category for its CermaClad™ high-speed, large-area, metal cladding technology. The Pipeline Industries Guild also conferred CermaClad with the ‘Subsea Pipeline Technology of the Year’ award that validate CermaClad’s potential to improve the performance and life of offshore pipelines and risers that are subject to an extreme assault of corrosion as they transport unrefined caustic fluids.

About a few years ago, the average requirement for clad pipes was for 3 to 5 kilometers whereas the largest requirement was 20 to 30 kilometers for each project. Today, the average requirement for clad pipes is in the tens of kilometers and the higher end in hundreds of kilometers for single projects; where cladding the inside diameter of a kilometer long 20” pipe would roughly translate to $6 million in revenues. The clad pipe market is growing at a rapid pace and the current solutions have several limitations in terms of inspectability, installation, quality, and productivity. CermaClad™ technology enables metallurgically bonded cladding over large areas at high production rates, and without the size, thickness, and reeling/installation limitations of other methods.

Robust Business Model
Abakan Inc.’s technologies are uniquely positioned in several multi-billion dollar markets. PComP™ targets the broad and fragmented market for corrosion resistance, while CermaClad™ targets a more consolidated market for large-scale metal cladding. Independent studies, awards, and industry have confirmed the effectiveness of both technologies.

PComP™’s are being commercially sold since 2011 and have witnessed progressively increasing demand; and once CermaClad™ development is finished, the company will be in a unique position to service large oil and gas companies. CermaClad™ plants can be established at a fraction of the cost of traditional steel mills, like those operated by U.S. Steel Corp.  or ArcelorMittal SA, which means that its up-front costs and utilization requirements are much lower.

Growth Plans

Abakan is currently scaling-up its PComP powder production from 3 tons/year to 18 tons/year to meet the growing demand, especially since the current capacity is sold out for the next 6 months, and has recently received a low-interest $1.5 million loan from State of Ohio that allows Abakan to scale-up its PComP powder production to 180 tons/year which given the current market price for similar thermal spray coating powder, translates to about $22 million in annual revenues. Further growth and expansion plans over the next 3 years call for the acquisition of up to 10 US based thermal spray production businesses that will have a total of 30 to 40 spray booths, which serve the growing oil and gas sector; where each coating cell can generate up to $5 million in revenues.

The company has announced setting-up a large clad pipe manufacturing plant in Indonesia, and has announced plans to set-up plants in Brazil and Canada to supply the highest quality metallurgical clad pipes for projects across the globe, as they see an increasing number of projects getting delayed due to lack of supply and lower quality of clad pipes. The very high productivity of the CermaClad™ technology enables the company to set-up clad pipe manufacturing facilities at a tenth of the cost of competing technologies; which allows the company to set-up multiple facilities across the globe to serve the regional market and fulfill the growing and critical local content requirement in South America, Indonesia, Africa, Middle East, and other regions - a trend that is expected to continue and grow over the foreseeable future. The company intends to have capability of producing up to 200 kms of 10” clad pipes in 2016, and then expects to add new clad pipe manufacturing facilities in Middle East, Mexico, Alberta, and Europe to produce more than 500 kms of 10” clad pipes to serve the rapidly growing clad pipe market across the globe.

Investors may want to take a closer look at the company given the large scale expansion of PComP™, the massive potential for CermaClad™, and recent traction and funding that the company has received which is briefly mentioned in the press releases below.

All-electric tube bender extends shape-forming capabilities of aerospace maker

As an example of the exacting specifications that SLE faces, one current part for a military fighter program calls for a shape with multiple 2D bends but minimal straight sections between bends, using thin wall titanium tubing. Tube ovality also has to be less than 5% after bending - as compared with an industry norm of 10% - and the part shape has a positional and length tolerance of just +/- 0.005 inches after bending and welding. As the part is made from titanium, bending must be right first time as adjustments after shape forming are almost impossible. The consistency and repeatability of the Unison machine is a critical enabler for fabricating this part, as well as other titanium tube parts that SLE currently makes.

Another aspect of the advantages of the Unison machine for a contractor such as SLE is the ease of programming. Tubes are often the last parts to be defined and designed - whether they are for an engine or airframe. Using its own bespoke macro-driven CATIA V5 closed-loop CAD/CAM facility, and Unison's three-dimensional simulator, SLE can create new CNC bending programs for the Unison machine very rapidly - providing ideal support for clients that are unable to supply tube/pipe details until the very late stages of projects.

"All-electric tube bending technology has given this client both a rapid return on investment, and a means of tackling emerging challenges such as bending exotic materials," adds Steve Haddrell of Unison.

SL Engineering Ltd has the fullrange of in-house resources required to offer complete solutions for the manufacture of specialised rigid tube assemblies and precision machined components used in some of the most demanding applications in the aerospace, industrial gas turbine, marine, oil and gas, and medical industries. Founded in 1959, SL Engineering has always specialised in high-precision tubular assemblies - from a starting point of products for motorsports applications. Today, the company employs around 50 staff. Its core capabilities include CNC tube manipulation, CMM tube inspection, multi-axis CNC machining for manufacturing complex end fittings, plus all required support processes including welding, brazing, assembly, pressure testing, and NDT (dye penetrant and x-ray inspection). To support its work in aerospace, SL Engineering has attained qualification to many key industry standards including AS9100 (Rev C) aerospace quality management systems, BS EN ISO9001, and NADCAP special process approvals for welding, brazing and NDT. To reinforce its position as a leading tube assembly specialist, SLE has also achieved SC21 award status for the last three consecutive years - making it one of the top performing aerospace organizations in the UK in terms of business performance and continual improvement. This performance has been all the more impressive as SLE also achieved 22% growth in business during 2013.

Safety upgrade for stainless steel rolling mill

ABB's new safety PLC has provided the platform for Sandvik Materials Technology to add zoned safety guarding to a large cold rolling mill at its Sandviken plant in Sweden. The mill is a key part of the production line for precision strip steel at the plant.

Sandvik's cold rolling mill has been upgraded a number of times throughout its life - including recent changes that added servomotors, and new machine control using ABB's standard AC500 PLC and touchscreen operator interface panels.

The latest upgrade adds safety PLC modules from ABB's AC500-S PLC to the machine control system to enhance the safety of the 20m-long mill with a networked architecture using the PROFIsafe protocol over PROFINET to provide independent control of six separate safety zones. The zoned arrangement means that parts of the machine can remain operational while an operator gains safe access to some other zone - where safety is assured by disabling power.

Some 50 safety PLC I/O channels are employed to link to gate switch and light curtain guarding, and emergency stop buttons. The I/O also monitors pressure switches to sense that hydraulic power is disabled so that maintenance can take place, and controls power supplies to the motor drives. Safe speed control is another aspect of the safety control provided by the new PLC - to ensure that hands or fingers cannot be trapped between the mill's belt and rollers.

Sandvik chose ABB's AC500-S safety PLC for this application because of good experience of the standard non-safety AC500 PLC architecture on both this machine and other machinery control projects. The AC500-S safety PLC also offered Sandvik the possibility of using floating point numbers, which simplified the safety programming required for this project for tasks such as calculating speed.

The fact that the standard version of the ABB PLC was already used on the mill measurably simplified the safety upgrade. This is because the safety PLC hardware shares the same look and feel as standard AC500 PLCs allowing safety and non-safety functions to be mixed in the same system. This compatibility includes identical dimensions to CPU and I/O modules, and the same mounting and wiring scheme.

The new dual-processor safety CPU module and the safety I/O channels have been integrated alongside the machine's existing AC500 PLC - which controls a total of six DC and AC drives and motors. The DC motors drive the main steel belt and rollers. The AC motors adjust roller position to achieve the desired pressure during strip steel processing. The standard PLC also links with four operator interface panels from ABB's CP600 series.

Programming the safety solution was made simple by the fact that ABB's integrated PLC development tool, Automation Builder, included support for safety PLC programming in its CODESYS-based integrated development environment - and support for the PLCopen Safety Library. ABB also provided its own safety code analyzer tool, SCA, which verifies the safety programming rules.

The familiarity of the programming environment and the sophistication of these tools helped Sandvik's developers to quickly understand safety PLC programming concepts. This allowed them to develop the enhanced machine safety architecture in a very short time - meeting the company's tight timescales set for this upgrade project - and quickly bring the enhanced mill into operation.

This project also took place before ABB had actually launched the AC500-S safety PLC. Prior to commercial release, the new PLC was extensively field tested in a large number of pilot applications. Sandvik was one of ABB's pilot customers and developed this safety control system before the product and tools were formally launched. This was made possible by good support from ABB's product development team. Since this application, Sandvik has gone on to use the safety PLC on three other machine refurbishment projects.

"We were very pleased to find such an easy-to-apply solution for adding state-of-the-art protection, in the form of the ABB's safety PLC - which integrated directly with the machine's existing PLC," says Torbjörn Pettersson, an engineering development specialist with Sandvik Materials Technology.

"The fact that ABB could supply the spectrum of machine control components required for this project, from the non-safety and safety variants of the PLC, to the operator panels, motor drives, contactors and safety hardware, both simplified and speeded this upgrade," says Jonas Rehnberg of ABB Sweden. "The modularity of the new safety solution also means that it is now very easy to upgrade or modify safety functionality in the future, to enhance the safety of the mill even further, or to integrate additional aspects of the production process."

The safety PLC - the AC500-S - is a recent addition to ABB's well-known AC500 PLC range and features a dual processor architecture that complies with SIL3 (IEC 61508:2010 and IEC 62061)/PL e (ISO 13849-1) functional safety levels. The integrated AC500-S safety PLC can run even if the non-safety PLC is stopped for maintenance. This means that personnel can still easily move within the machine during the maintenance phase, because the safety PLC will continue monitoring the state of the machine's safety sensors and executing its safety function.

Current Challenges and Way Ahead for Shale Gas in Australia

Author: Izwan Rasul

Currently, US is the only country with commercially available shale resource. Taking cue from the US, countries with shale resources are beginning to realize its potential, in particular Australia that has begun exploring its shale resources to supply it to the market once production begins.

Australia also has a large coal seam gas (CSG) reserves identified in the eastern region and is committed to meet CSG-LNG export requirements over the next twenty years. However, there has been a decline in conventional gas production which would impact the rising gas prices with significant flow-on effects to domestic retail electricity. Such scenario provides ample opportunities for the cost competitive shale gas to contribute to domestic and export requirements in Australia.

Ongoing Shale Gas Development
Currently, there are three shale wells in production in the Cooper Basins.

• Moomba-191 - producing 65 mcm/d (million cubic metres per day)
• Encounter- 1 - producing 59.4 mcm/d
• Moonta- 1 - producing 45.3 mcm/d

Shale gas industry has been gaining traction in Australia with an estimate of $500 million investment on shale exploration and completion works in the Cooper- Eromanga Basin over the next 1-2 years. But as in any other nascent market, challenges faced by Australia in realizing its shale gas potential is abound. They include infrastructure issues, geological understanding, water availability and operating cost. This is mainly because most of the prospective shale gas areas are in remote locations namely the Canning, Cooper and Georgina Basins. Compared to the US, pipeline and road networks are undeveloped impacting the rate of shale gas development.

Figure 1: Existing Oil and Gas infrastructure in Australia

Source: DMITRE, SA,2012; US Energy Information Administration (EIA,2011b)

Infrastructure Challenges
The Cooper basin has a well equipped infrastructure with existing gas and liquid lines to the relevant east coast market. It is the only place which is ready for further development as it can rely on current connection to gas consumers. Besides, the Perth and Otway basins are well positioned for rapid development due to existing demand and transportation infrastructure can be expanded easily. Pipeline infrastructure in the Canning basin does not currently exist. A plan on the Great Northern Pipeline infrastructure will be able to connect gas supply to the Western Australia (WA) domestic market. However, before any pipeline is constructed, WA should have a demand of at least 50 PJ per annum which will make a pipeline economically feasible. Sufficient reserves are required to be constructed over a period of time before a financially risky exploration and appraisal process takes place. Local market needs to be established as a first step and gas have to be delivered via road until there is a bigger demand justifying the construction of a pipeline.

Skilled Workforce Shortages
One of the major obstacles is workforce shortage in Australia. An estimate of 450 staff is required for a 50 PJ project with an additional of 75 operational staff. Furthermore, labor is required for road construction, accommodation and transmission pipelines. Such workforce with a required skill set is limited locally and there could be a possibility in transfer of workers from CSG projects but only when CSG development slows down.

Figure 2: Shale production labor requirements for a 50 PJ development

Source: Sinclair Knight Merz, 2013

Environmental Impact
Shale gas production contaminates landscape and environment where some of the possible impacts include:

• Aquatic ecosystem gets affected due to contamination of land and surface water as a result of spillage of hydraulic fracturing additives and overflow. Tank rupture from its liquid waste storage also affects the ecosystem.
• Wellbore failure and subsurface migration will raise an impact on subsurface fauna, vegetation and landscape function indirectly.
• Noise, light pollution and local traffic may be impacted during ongoing construction and pre-production activities.
• Increased air emissions of methane and volatile compounds coming from drilling, hydraulic fracturing and high pressure compressors.

However, in Queensland and New South Wales, much work is being done on raising awareness on the difference between CSG and Shale fracking and working with local communities in order minimize any potential environmental impacts. Especially in NSW, drilling companies has to adhere with strict rules and regulation as cited in the South Australia Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act 2000. Furthermore, the case in Western Australia is different as shale resources are very deep in the rural areas where no occupants exist.
Effective and timely addressal of the challenges above can propel shale gas revolution in Australia. In addition, issues pertaining fracking regulations, property rights, licensing restrictions and lack of investment need to be considered.

Australia's Shale Future Shows Positive Growth Signs
The main market for shale gas exports from the US is Asia. This is one of the primary reasons behind Australia's intention to develop its shale resources and begin production to cater to Asia's future gas demand. Although production has begun in the Cooper Basins due to the commercially ready infrastructure, other basins with low to zero population density are yet to be developed by the government. Currently, Australia ranks six in global shale resources with an estimated of 417 trillion cubic feet of recoverable shale.
High cost for extracting shale gas are making it difficult for existing companies but export market opportunities are huge if Australia pursues in realizing its potential with the backing of  government incentives. In addition, carbon pricing implementation in 2012 has made consumers to divert its focus to natural gas.

Currently, companies operating in the booming US shale market have ventured into the nascent Australian market. This is likely to increase the momentum in exploration and production of shale gas. Tapping the shale gas will not only propel Australia's economy but will also help to maintain its competitiveness in the global energy market. Nevertheless, the country needs to build a robust infrastructure, acquire skill sets, and assess ecosystem management and investment requirements thoroughly.