We think that any company that has been around for 70 years must be doing something right.

This year, leading sheet metal manufacturing equipment supplier, Amada, celebrates a significant milestone in the industry as a lead innovator in automated technology.

Faced with increasing customer demand and global competition, FORM2000 made the important business decision to heavily invest in automated technology and equipment to support a more cost-efficient, flexible and productive operation.

"Essentially, our decision was driven by the need to provide a wider range of services to our customers, with increased quality and, at a lower cost," explains FORM2000 General Manager, Simon Mollison.

According to Simon, when it came to selection of a vendor partner, FORM2000 were so impressed by the innovation from Japanese supplier, Amada, that "our factory floor now boasts a full complement of Amada sheet metal cutting, folding, welding and tooling equipment."

"Since 2007 we have exclusively invested in brand new machines, and most of our machines are only three or four years old," he says. "Our continued investment in Amada machinery has enabled us to run an integrated, fully automated, 'lights-off', flexible manufacturing system."

FORM2000's impressive suite of Amada machines includes two of Amada's latest sheetmetal systems, an FLW4000 robotic fibre laser welder and a fibre laser cutting machine FOL3015A – dubbed 'the world’s fastest fibre laser cutting system' with an ASF3015F automatic storage and retrieval system. This is complemented by an investment in automated and robotic folding equipment.

Collectively, this investment in automated technology provides benefits in:

• Exceptional precision, accuracy and speed.
• Design flexibility and rapid prototyping.
• Flexibility to optimise manufacturing process selection – based on volume, sheet metal size, gauge and cost.
• Flexibility to accommodate either high-volume, low-mix orders or low-volume, high-mix.
• Handling of a wider range of materials (including reflective materials such as brass and copper), of different gauge thickness.
• Lower energy consumption.

"FORM2000 has been an early adopter within the sheet metal manufacturing industry of both automated machinery and, in particular, Amada equipment in Australia," says Simon.

"Our strategy has always been to achieve productivity, quality and efficiency gains that support growth," he says. "We continue to realise the benefits of our investment in this technology and look forward to seeing what the future holds in terms of technology development over the next 70 years."

Further Information

See our machines in operation: