Scrap: Money to Burn

Would you pick up a nickel if you saw one on the ground? A dollar? How about $400,000?

Depending on the size of your press, reducing your scrap output by 1% could amount to a few hundred thousand dollars in annual savings. Is scrap eating up your profits?

Some scrap is unavoidable, even in state-of-the-art extrusion lines. Butt-ends and damage caused by stretcher jaws can’t be avoided. However, scrap resulting from inconsistent profile lengths, poor extrusion quality, obsolete handling equipment, and imprecise measurement and cutting can and must be avoided if your company is to remain competitive.

The System Approach

An extrusion line functions as a system. Productivity is compromised when a line is composed of assorted components, equipment from different sources that wasn’t designed to work together. For operations to be carried out with maximum accuracy and efficiency, all equipment must interface smoothly, functioning as an integrated unit.

The nerve center of an extrusion line, the computer control system that coordinates operations, has system-wide impact on the accuracy of production and the resulting amount of scrap. Granco Clark’s SCSExtrude (Supervisory Computer System) has a number of productivity enhancing features. SCS Extrude manages equipment parameters so that setup is precisely duplicated every time. This means that you consistently produce more high-quality product and less scrap.

System Components and Scrap

The effectiveness of each component within your system, from log shear to aging oven, also has a powerful impact on the amount of scrap produced.

A log shear enables you to cut billets to the precise length needed. Granco Clark’s “Quick Cycle” Log Shear provides the maximum squareness of cut, allowing the short pieces to be combined into two-piece “compensation cut” billets. A unique, patented storage gear assembly eliminates the need for a heating box and transfer mechanisms used to accomplish compensation cuts on other systems. With the right size billet always available, production is more efficient and scrap losses are greatly reduced.

Taper quenching, a process refined and patented by Granco Clark, is a method of differentially cooling a uniformly heated billet to compensate for the heat generated during extrusion. The precise temperature control of Granco Clark’s triple-patented Taper Quench creates the linear taper necessary for isothermal extrusion, minimizing air entrapment, allowing for maximum possible ram speed, and ensuring uniform properties along the length of the product. Taper quenching can help reduce the production of poor quality extrusions destined for the scrap pile.

Pullers grip and guide the extrusions as they emerge from the press, preventing twisting and keeping them on the runout table. When multi-hole dies are used, pullers ensure that the extrusions emerge at an even rate, reducing runout differential. Granco Clark's Double Puller offers benefits that far exceed those of single pullers. The Double Puller design cuts on the fly at the die mark, significantly reducing the amount of scrap and eliminating an additional cut at the finish saw. It also offers the option of several operating modes, one of which allows extrusions to be run from a single billet, even if they are longer than the runout table, providing continuous production with fewer dead cycles and only one butt end.

Reducing the cost of labor is only one of the benefits of incorporating more automation into your extrusion line. The more an extrusion is handled, the more opportunity there is for damage to occur. Even when handling is not manual, outmoded conveyors, tables, and walking beam belt systems can damage profiles, increase scrap and reduce your profits. Granco Clark’s automated Profile Handling Equipment and Stacking Systems are engineered for superior surface quality protection, giving you maximum throughput and high quality profiles.

Advancements in technology and commitment to quality within our industry continue to increase productivity by reducing scrap, downtime and other inefficiencies. In today’s competitive extrusion market, you need to make every minute — and every profile — count.

For more than 45 years, Granco Clark has directly participated in the progress of extrusion technology by introducing a number of innovations to meet the productivity challenges facing extruders.