Smarter machine tool technology LNS Group

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The LNS Group is a global leader in the design and manufacture of machine tool peripherals. The company has seen consistent growth throughout its long history. Philip Yorke reports on a privately held company that continues to innovate and set the standards for the machine tool industry worldwide.

LNS was founded in Switzerland in the Jura region in 1973 by three skilled engineers, who decided to design bar feeders that improved the speed and efficiency of fixed and sliding headstock lathes. Their success has been recognised worldwide and their culture of innovation remains at the heart of all LNS Group operations today.

A major milestone in the company’s history occurred when in 1975 a young and ingenious precision-machining technician named Mr Philippe Scheurer was developing a unique machine tool concept. Following the contractual acquisition of Mr Scheurer’s patents, LNS invented the world’s first hydraulic bar feeder. This is better known as the Hydrobar®. This system guides a rotating bar into a bath of oil, covering it in a fine film of oil. This reduces friction, noise and vibration while allowing the lathe to increase the spindle speed and ultimately increases significantly the efficiency of the machines.

The invention proved such a resounding success that not only did LNS increase its turnover dramatically but the Hydrobar® brand has also become a generic term that is still used throughout the machine tool industry.

Today LNS is the clear global leader in the field of machine tool automation with around 1000 employees worldwide. The engineering group operates ten state-of-the-art production facilities, which are located in North America, the UK, China, Turkey, Italy, Japan, Switzerland and, more recently, Germany. To date more than 120,000 bar feeders have been produced and delivered by LNS and over 250,000 chip conveyers installed worldwide.

Innovation on display at EMO

The LNS Group recently displayed an array of new, innovative products at the EMO international trade show this year. One of its latest products was designed by the Swiss company’s R&D team and is known as the high-end Express 220 S2bar feeder. This versatile product replaces the successful Express 220 model and offers greater stability, ergonomics and autonomy. Furthermore, compared to its predecessor, the Express220S weighs 40 per cent more. This is due to the fact that LNS used a steel beam, CNC components and installed big, very stable stands. This combination results in less vibrations and a better surface finish.

Another newcomer to LNS’s portfolio is the Sprint 565 S2, which is an automatic bar feeder for fixed headstock lathes and is designed for bars ranging in diameter from 5mm to 65mm. In the brand new S2 version, the bar feeder has been upgraded with

SM-Cyclo UK, based in Hull, is the British subsidiary of Sumitomo Cyclo Drive Germany and serves the markets in Great Britain, parts of Africa and Middle East/Arabia.

SM-Cyclo UK, Ltd Unit 29, Bergen Way, Sutton Fields Industrial Estate, Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, HU7 0YQ, United Kingdom Phone: +44 (0)1482 790340 | www.sumitomodrive.com

Sumitomo Drive Technologies

With over a hundred years experience in the field, Sumitomo Drive Technologies are consistent world leaders in the design and manufacture of speed reducers and geared motors for industrial applications. In today’s economic environment, innovation and strategic development are essential in order to reduce production costs, exceed targets and increase profit margins. We offer bespoke, customer specific solutions for an everchanging industry, tailored to ensure your machinery operates at optimum speed, with sustained durability and precision. Our teams are dedicated to continuous innovation, safeguarding the strength and advancement of your business objectives within fierce market competition. Commitment to our customers is paramount, and with a dependable, international service network spanning 50 countries, you can count on our support to help you adapt, update and evolve. We are proud to announce our current partnership with the LNS Turbo Group, and would like to extend our best wishes for all future collaborations.

bigger stands, a chain loader with capacity for 52mm or 65mm bars and a high-end HMI touch screen. The new Sprint offers customers more choice in the high range product sector. The extended capacity and improved rigidity are the main plus factors here. The same innovations have been applied to the new 545 bar feeder for fixed and sliding headstock lathes, which are tailored to bars ranging from 5mm to 45mm with an outstanding autonomy up to 18 bars.

The company also featured an all-new WS 2 series air filtration system at the EMO Trade Fair. Like its predecessor the WS series, the WS 2 is highly effective with efficient elimination of oil mist and offers small and compact dimensions as well as easy handling and integration. In addition, the pre-filter drainage and design has been significantly improved. Side inlets instead of vertical or horizontal inlets help to improve the flexibility of the new WS2 product.

Focus on air filtration

Air filtration solutions are helping LNS to double their sales every second year and are becoming increasingly important as part of the LNS Group’s product portfolio. The LNS Group achieved strong growth with its Fox air filtration line in all major markets last year.

“We double sales in this product segment every second year. Demand is still high, and we aim to keep up this pace of growth in the medium term,” said Laurent Pham, marketing manager of the LNS Group.

Air filtration systems, chip conveyers and coolant management systems are all of increasing importance to the product portfolio of LNS. “For over 40 years, the LNS Group has developed innovative products in machine tool equipment and made a name for itself as the leading bar feeding and chip management system specialist worldwide. In the past decade, we successfully transformed into a true one-stop shop for the machine tool industry, offering a whole new range of machine tool peripherals,” explained Pham.

Different models of the Fox filtration systems have also been developed by LNS’s engineering team to meet a variety of industrial requirements and solve a broad range of pollution problems in the facilities of its customers. The company’s mist collector series Fox WS2 is compact, can be perfectly integrated into the machine tool and offers the ideal solution for metal cutting applications, whereas the Fox WM series is designed for the simultaneous collection of multiple machine tools and very large machine tools where considerable airflow is needed. n

For further details of LNS Group’s innovative products and services visit: www.lns-europe.com