Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow, a national manufacturing innovation institute based in Detroit’s Corktown district, today announced the HELLER FP 6000 5-Axis Machining Center has been installed and is ready for use at the company’s research and manufacturing facility.
With the new technology in place, LIFT now has the ability to design, produce, and test full-scale parts and components over a large material spectrum, enabling its members to develop and deploy new and advanced materials manufacturing processes and cutting-edge technologies for the metal cutting industry.
HELLER Machine Tools is based in Troy and designs, develops, manufactures, and engineers machine tool productions globally.
“Our focus is all about innovations in lightweighting, which means providing our members with state-of-the-art equipment, like the new HELLER 5-Axis Machining Center, to help them achieve their goals,” says Nigel Francis, CEO and executive director at LIFT. “With access to machining tools like the HELLER FP 6000, the world’s largest linear friction welder and other cutting-edge machining equipment, our world-class R&D center for metalworking is the global resource for innovation.”
The HELLER FP 6000 has a fifth axis in the tool and is configured with a pallet changer enhancing production cycle times. It offers simultaneous five-side machining that uses a swivel head or tilting head kinematics and an easy-to-automate system with workpiece or pallet automation for high-volume applications. It optimizes parts costs by reducing the number of clamping positions and complete machining in one setup, and it has a large part capacity.
“Our partnership with LIFT allows us the opportunity to not only showcase and demonstrate our technology, but also help LIFT and its members achieve their lightweighting goals,” says Steve Pegram, vice president of HELLER. “The HELLER FP 6000 machining center is the right choice for anyone wanting to perform numerous functions on one machine and produce reliably, not just today, but in the future as well. We’re excited to see what LIFT and its members innovate from it.”
LIFT is operated by the American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute and is a public-private partnership committed to the development and deployment of advanced lightweight metal manufacturing technologies, as well as implementing education and training initiatives.
HELLER has manufacturing plants in the U.S., Germany, Brazil, China, and England and has been producing machine tools since 1894.
