Just the name of the company is interesting: Josef Eibl GmbH – Schreinerei, Handwerk & Design (Carpentry, Handicraft & Design), since it shows that the company combines the ability of craftsmen with design and professional manufacture.

The company, located in D-84168 Aham in Lower Bavaria, was established more than 100 years ago and is currently managed by the fifth generation of the family in the person of Josef Eibl jun. Whereas his father, Josef Eibl sen., worked as a classical village carpenter and joiner, Josef Eibl jun. has since expanded the company. It now employs 22 persons and is active in three main areas: classical interior decoration, manufacture and supply of bathroom furniture, benches and worktops made of Varicor (which consists of 2/3 mineral filler aluminium hydroxide and 1/3 polyester resins) and point-of-sale decorations for temporary shops (which are discarded after about four weeks of use). As can be seen from this rather unusual product range, the company is no longer just a traditional carpenter's shop, but is involved in the industrial machining of wood and other materials. An additional problem is that many jobs are related to specific projects (the Senate Building in Prague, an airport in Algeria, a shop in the Vatican, a nursing school in Amsterdam or interior decoration for fashion chains such as Rena Lange, Baldessarini, Etienne Aigner...), who have set their own standards for the design and execution and for the schedules.

In daily production, this demands a high degree of flexibility and maximal efficiency with respect to the use of staff and machines. For this reason, Josef Eibl jun. was recently forced to start using CNC technology. The company was very satisfied with one of their main machine tools, a shaping machine on which the wood chips are removed downwards and the workpieces are fixed with a conventional vacuum clamping system. However, the time and materials for the production of the necessary templates resulted in high costs and, in addition, the bottlenecks in the manufacturing process.

Flexible vacuum clamping
technology increases productivity

In order to cure the bottlenecks and to improve productivity and flexibility in the machining of wood and plastic parts, Josef Eibl jun. invested at the end of 2003 in a CNC woodworking centre from Messrs. Weeke. This centre was equipped in the factory with the vacuum clamping system VC-K2 from J. Schmalz GmbH in D-72293 Glatten. This system has two vacuum circuits. The first circuit fixes the suction blocks, arranged to match the workpiece, so that they cannot move while the workpiece is being loaded, and the second circuit then secures the suction blocks and the workpiece to the machine table for the machining operations. Basically, the employees at Eibl are very satisfied with the CNC machining centre and the vacuum clamping system. However, they produce a large number of different workpieces produced in small batches or as one-off jobs and therefore wished to improve the flexibility with which the CNC machining centre could be used by adding a further clamping system, without having to accept longer setting-up times.

During a visit to the Schmalz factory in Glatten, Josef Eibl jun. was impressed by the advantages of the modular vacuum clamping system Innospann and decided to have this retrofitted on his machine. The Innospann system not only offers benefits in clamping and handling, but can also be sued in mixed mode and can be converted very quickly. It thus ensures the desired flexibility in clamping and use and also reduces the non-productive setting-up times to a minimum. This means that more parts can be produced in the same operating times of the machine. At Eibl, this means that the Weeke machining centre runs practically continuously from 7 am to 5 pm. Josef Eibl jun., who was originally rather sceptical about CNC technology and vacuum clamping technology, now says, "We now use 100% of the machine time productively to manufacture small batches and one-off jobs of parts made from wood and Varicor. While we are independent in the case of small batches and always have a certain basic load, we need fast availability and extremely flexible clamping technology for the one-off jobs, so that the workpieces can be machined practically instantaneously as demanded by the existing priorities".

Initial scepticism gives way to enthusiasm

Initially, the two machine operators, Robert Wölflick and Christian Baldauf, were also rather sceptical, but are now fully convinced of the benefits of vacuum clamping technology and, above all, of the Innospann system. Today, almost all orders are machined on the CNC centre, which must therefore be converted frequently to handle the various parts. For this, Firma Eibl has a wide range of suction pads from the vacuum camping system VC-K2: 21 suction blocks 140x115x100 mm, 5 suction blocks 125x75x100 mm, 5 rotatable suction blocks 120x50x100 mm and 4 mechanical clamps 160x128x100 mm. These are now supplemented by 8 suction cups 1 80x80x30 mm, 5 suction cups 2 80x40x30 mm, 8 suction cups 3 80x28x30 mm, 22 mono-bases 80x80x42 mm and 5 adapter plates 200x200x28 mm from the modular Innospann system. With these components, even the most unusual clamping arrangement can be implemented in a very short time, without mechanical conversion and without the use of tools. The idle times of the CNC machining centre have dropped to almost zero. Since it was possible to retrofit the Innospann system easily, and since the Schmalz vacuum clamping technology has proved to be very efficient (only the friction pads need to be replaced when they are worn; otherwise, the system needs no maintenance), nobody at Eibl can imagine going working without vacuum clamping technology.

Furthermore, the company no longer needs to design and produce templates, no material is needed for making them, and the workers and machines used for template production can be utilised for other tasks. These benefits alone ensure fast amortisation of the investment in vacuum clamping technology, and this also has a positive effect on the amortisation of the investment in the CNC machining centre.

Rational automation with the aid of
vacuum clamping and handing technology

And because Josef Eibl jun. never does things by halves, he also purchased a handling system for loading and unloading the machining centre, namely a vacuum tube lifter JumboErgo for loads of up to 85 kg. And that was not all: four further vacuum tube lifters of the type Jumbo for loads of up to 65 and 85kg, two crane-mounted vacuum lifting devices of the type VacuMaster Multi and a vacuum workbench PVS are used in parts of the factory. The vacuum tube lifters are used for loading and unloading various woodworking machines, each being positioned such that it can serve two machines. The vacuum lifting devices are used for lifting and turning sheets of Varicor and the vacuum workbench is used to hold smaller workpieces (up to 1 x 1 m) during machining of their edges. Summing up, Josef Eibl jun. says, "We are really happy with the clamping and handling with vacuum technology, particularly since we know that we have the ideal partners in the form of Messrs. Schmalz and its staff. The technology couldn't be better and the cost-effectiveness of the systems is good in all respects. Before purchasing, we evaluated several possible suppliers and Schmalz impressed us in all areas. The execution of the projects showed that this impression was correct, and this is why we use vacuum technology from Schmalz everywhere."