Orlando, Fla. — Toshiba Machine Co. America is opening a 60,000-square-foot warehouse in Elk Grove Village, Ill., just two blocks from its headquarters, in a move to centralize warehousing in the Chicago area, an executive said at NPE2018.
Tom McKevitt, vice president and general manager, said company officials did a walk-through of the building just before NPE in Orlando, May 7-11. Toshiba America is consolidating two 10,000-square-foot warehouses in Elgin, Ill., and Ontario, Calif., into the big new warehouse.
"We're pulling it all into Chicago," McKevitt said at the injection press company's booth during NPE2018.
Toshiba will be able to power up injection molding machines in the facility to run them off before delivery, he said. The company also adds software and screws and barrels to the machines, made by Japanese parent company Toshiba Machine Co. Ltd.
McKevitt said most customers now want presses customized for specific applications, so Toshiba is not just selling standard machines coming over from Japan. Having the warehouse in Elk Grove Village gives the company more local control.
"What we're trying to do is get everybody under one roof, and to improve our quality," he said.
Toshiba America usually has about 120 injection presses in inventory, ranging in clamping force from 30 to 1,450 tons.
At NPE2018, Toshiba's next-generation ECSXIII series of all-electric injection molding machine made its North American debut. The press offers greater versatility and performance in a streamlined frame design. Features include a re-engineered clamping system, significantly faster injection speeds and quick-change removable platens, the company said.
Toshiba ran four ECSXIII presses molding parts in Orlando. A 110-ton press, combined with an E-Multi secondary unit, six-axis robot and rotating platen, made two-material housings for the iPhone 7 Plus by molding, inserting polycarbonate backing sheets, assembling and removing the parts.
A 200-ton EC200XIII with an E-Multi injection unit, two Toshiba six-axis robots and a Mold-Masters hot runner system molded, removed and assembled components with two different colors.
Toshiba demonstrated a smart factory cell with a 250-ton EC250SXII and a six-axis robot combined with an automatic mold changing cart and magnetic platens from Pascal to alternately mold headlight reflectors and cord holders. A laser inscribed a QR code with molding parameters onto each part, giving full traceability.
A V70 Injectvisor on a 390-ton EC390XIII press was tied into the controller for a Sepro robot, molding and removing 32-ounce cups. A multi-zone Mold-Masters hot runner was integrated into the system. NPE visitors could view production results.
Toshiba also showed the high performance and repeatability of its TiAS servo hydraulics — as a 250-ton TiA250S equipped with a Yushin robot molded and removed pillboxes from a two-cavity mold.
All five presses were linked to Toshiba's iPAQET data acquisition system and displayed at a communication hub. The hub also displayed the Euromap 77 standard for Industry 4.0, as well as a V70 simulator.
