Formentechnik Bayreuth carries out an extremely wide range of milling activities and has, accordingly high milling capacity requirements. The company had a machine for mold bases and frames, but wanted a faster and more productive process for the mold inserts, which had to be taken quickly from the CAM area to production before curing. Therefore, when Managing Director Jürgen Ziegler visited the EuroMold, he was initially just interested in sounding out the range of available 5-axis machining centers. The aim was to have a a stand-alone milling machine that would take over all tasks related to bottlenecks. His first contact with
FEHLMANN and the VERSA however was not necessarily indicative of things to come: "In my mind,
FEHLMANN was a company active exclusively in the area of drilling machines and simple milling tasks. Therefore, I was very surprised and at the same time impressed by the 5-axis machining center – in particular by the very good accessibility, automation options offered and large tool magazine which can be handled by operators while standing. I had never seen a system with such a compact footprint." Until then, however, Formentechnik Bayreuth had not been under pressure to take action and had relied on milling machines from a leading German manufacturer. They nevertheless delved deeper into the matter and pursued the concept of a machining center with a corresponding pallet handling system and at least 250 tool stations.
Although a sophisticated machine had been found in the portfolio of the previous manufacturer, the palletization system it provided was not ideal, the tool magazine was not necessarily space-saving and, not least, the machine was relatively expensive. The Bayreuth-based mold-makers therefore began a lengthy search process.
Numerous concepts were examined and tested before the company traveled to FEHLMANN in Switzerland. After the visit, Jürgen Ziegler said: "FEHLMANN's production process in conjunction with the precision offered made a very favorable impression. But it was the innovative skills of its employees that really impressed us. For the first time we had the feeling: here we'll be getting what we want, we won't reach the limits so quickly, FEHLMANN actually provides a wide range of possibilities. And that's ultimately why we opted for the VERSA. To arrive at this point, however, we had to go through the longest decision making process we had ever experienced."

Even in "Z" the machine stands and operates as accurately as ever
The machine was installed in August 2013 and has been in operation since then – in its standard version, with a large pallet storage and 218 stations based on the tool lengths. It is a machine which is fun to operate – at least in the eyes of milling team leader Michael Siller: "We produce parts with tolerances of +/-5 microns, which usually requires a high degree of effort. Even in "Z", the VERSA operates with such high precision that we are now executing orders we had never envisaged, sometimes including hard milling."
The example of an ABS piston illustrates the satisfaction of Formentechnik Bayreuth: A component that, due to precision requirements, was always milled on an HSC machine is now milled on the VERSA. The big advantage of the pallet changer here is that mold inserts are machined, go to the measuring machine and can be later corrected without losses by using the calculated offset values. The objective of covering the standard range with the VERSA seems to have been successfully achieved. Moreover, the VERSA is now utilized more than any other machine of Formentechnik Bayreuth. For Sebastian Will, active in the milling and CAM area, it is above all the fine details that make the overall concept of the machine so remarkable: "My colleague already mentioned the machine's precision. Added to this is the integrated rinsing process initiated by the Job Manager, which leads to much less dirt in the pallet magazine."
Finally, only the  initial concerns about the performance of FEHLMANN's 5-axis machining centers remained. But these have long since been set aside, according to Jürgen Ziegler: "The innovative power and precision of the VERSA already gives us the confidence that the machine will be operating as it should for a long time and won't fail to deliver the precision that continues to surprise us today."

About Formentechnik Bayreuth
In 1991, the company was spun off the Schlaeger Group (automotive industry system supplier for actuators and sensors in vehicles) and has been independent since then. 40 employees focus on in-house tasks and the needs of the automotive sector, as well as the electrical industry and medical engineering.
The priorities here include injection molds with hot runner technology up to 600 x 900 mm and 3000 kg, complex tools with multiple parting planes, as well as two-component tools and highly plated tools for the medical industry.

Interesting side note
FEHLMANN, as manufacturers of 5-axis machining centers, may have been a blank canvas to Formentechnik Bayreuth. The fact, however, is that since the VERSA was launched in 2009 over 100 machines were purchased, primarily in Germany.

Incidentally
Roland Sandmeier, Sales Manager Germany at FEHLMANN: "The specific case of Formentechnik Bayreuth was also a win-win situation for us. We had developed an extended tool management system for the HSCi control unit and were thus able to consider and integrate the wishes of Formentechnik Bayreuth into our concept."
75 percent of the Formentechnik Bayreuth employees have been recruited in-house. This means they were formerly apprentices that were later hired by the company.

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