Automotive Roll Forming

Metal forming machines have revolutionized the auto industry. With portable roll forming machines, it has become easier for manufacturers to produce high quality auto parts like bumpers and chassis at affordable prices. In other words, metal roll forming machines have helped the auto industry to maintain steady prices of new models despite sky rocketing steel prices. Rising prices of steel, which is the backbone of auto industry, have been a cause of concern for car manufacturers. Leading manufacturers like General Motors and Fiat were quite bewildered due to the constant hike in the steel prices. They were pressurized by the auto parts manufacturers to raise the prices but the fear of losing customers was haunting them.

Automobile industry has changed the way it used to produce structural body parts and auto rack parts required for producing cars and trucks. The rising steel prices may be the cause to this change but a shift in technology has been beneficial in many terms. Here, we will evaluate the new technique used in making body structural parts.

The process of making a car starts with the production of auto structural body parts. To produce body structural parts in large amount, auto parts manufacturers use metal stamping. The metal stamping is a labor intensive process. In addition, a high volume of steel goes into waste without being used in the manufacturing process. To battle steel prices, auto parts manufacturers need a technology, which can make bumper, D-Pillar, C-Pillar, D-post, window slide, longitudinal stiffner, roof cross member and crossmembers with no scrap, out of costly high-strength steel. They found all these characteristics in the roll forming machines.

Today's roll forming machines not only produce little scrap but also reduce the number of defective parts considerably. In this way a roll forming machine consumes maximum steel and makes high-strength body structural parts for car manufacturing companies. In addition, latest roll forming machines are labor intensive. It means that you can make as many quality parts as you want without putting in much labor.

Now roll forming machines use flying technology for cutting the profiles ‘on-the-fly’. You can also incorporate ‘rafted’ or ‘cassettes’ on a roll forming machine to reduce roll tooling change over times dramatically.

Automobile industry needs more steel. It is continually adopting high strength steel parts to make their products more sturdy and durable. But the steel prices are today at an all time high. Should automobile industry increase the price of our cars? No. Then how can they meet their demand of high strength steel parts? The answer lies with the spare parts manufacturers.

And the automotive industry knows this and this is why it has asked its manufacturers to search cost effective ways for making bumpers, chassis components, door window runners and cross supports. Now it is the turn of manufacturer's to look further than metal stamping. Prudent manufacturers have already started using automotive roll forming machines while others are still vacillating.

An automotive roll forming machine is one, which can make quality auto parts out of metal plate or steel sheet with little or no scrap. A roll forming machine bends and forms flat coils of metals out of a metal plate or steel sheet. Use of a roll former reduces the number of defective parts produced thus increasing the volume. It also delivers repeatable part tolerances. In this way, manufacturers can utilize maximum steel they bought at a high price. Latest machines use flying technology for cutting profiles 'on-the-fly'. This technology helps in producing virtually interrupted assemblies with quality repeatable designs. Finite Element Analysis software is another technique used to add quality to roll forming products. It is a software, which can raise the bar in your tooling design and no need to mention that advance tooling helps produce high quality repeatable parts.