At MFC Modell- und Formenbau Chemnitz GmbH, you can really feel the successful combination of traditional methods and leading edge equipment. Metal has been processed within the company’s time-honoured walls since 1915. The highly respected entrepreneur Gustav Krautheim, who was esteemed far beyond the borders of Saxony, established the Krautheim steel foundry here.
Even then, the company already had its own model construction workshop for the production of castings. And although the political environment changed a number of times in the decades that followed, this area of business always endured and continuously developed. The company has been operating under its current name, MFC Modell- und Formenbau Chemnitz GmbH (or MFC for short), since 1997. It primarily manufactures aluminium moulds for the plastics processing industry, as well as jigs and gauges for automotive construction.
MFC has been under the management of the executive partner, Tino Mädler, for five years now, and today employs around thirty members of staff in early and late shifts. Only the TILTENTA 11, a 5-axis machining centre from HEDELIUS, continues its machining work unattended overnight and at weekends. The new centrepiece of the MFC machine fleet is a high-performance machining centre with a swivelling main spindle and a 1,100 mm Y-axis travel path.
“Our operations run such that the small, fine workpieces are produced during the daytime, and the large workpieces are processed on the machine while unattended overnight,” explains Tino Mädler. The long machining times required for the large workpieces, as well as the associated heat generation, do not present any difficulties for us,” continues Mädler enthusiastically. “The TILTENTA 11 has a water-cooled HSK-63 spindle with a speed of 18,000 rpm and active cooling. The intelligent cooling system delivers high thermal stability and compensates for temperature differences, which has a particularly significant impact on the quality of the components.”
This advantage was one of the reasons behind the manager’s decision in favour of the TILTENTA 11. Another reason was the positive experience with the somewhat smaller TILTENTA 6, which has been in reliable operation at MFC for a little longer. The operators were especially impressed with the successful ergonomics. “Our colleagues really enjoy working on the HEDELIUS machines,” explains Mädler. Incidentally, both machining centres also perfectly match the MFC production hall when it comes to aesthetics, because they were delivered in the company’s blue colour scheme as requested.
The issue of chip fall was also very important to the Chemnitz team, since the degree of machining required for the aluminium blocks stands at a massive 85 percent. “A huge number of chips are produced, but they fall neatly onto the chip conveyor and are cleanly transported away, avoiding any build-up of heat.” The machining centres in the TILTENTA series are equipped as standard with vertical stainless steel covers to ensure optimum chip fall, as well as complete encapsulation of the work area.
The two HEDELIUS machines have taken the company to a whole new level, and Mädler is delighted. “We can now achieve outstanding performance, even with large components. This has improved our quality and production speed enormously, and it's has allowed us to enter entirely new business areas.” A company couldn't wish to achieve more!
