Mikuni India Increases Productivity Thanks to PCD Tools from MAPAL

Mikuni Corporation was founded in Tokyo in 1923. Today, the Japanese company has a worldwide presence, with branches in the USA, Mexico, Germany, Indonesia, China, Thailand, Taiwan and Korea. In 2008, the company established its Indian subsidiary, Mikuni India Private Limited, in the Indian city of Neemrana, located 122 kilometres south-west of Delhi.

Today, Mikuni India offers its customers a broad range of components for the automotive industry, including carburetors and throttle valves. Mikuni India consequently received the “Best Supplier” award from the automotive industry for its outstanding quality products and terms of delivery.

In 2017, Mikuni India faced the challenge of increasing the production volume of carburetors. “Mikuni approached us with the request to considerably accelerate the machining process for large-scale production,” Thanigaraj Sripathy, Managing Director of MAPAL India, remembers.

When carburetor housings are manufactured from an aluminium alloy, the challenging machining of the piston bore and throttle bore are the most time-consuming operations and contribute substantially to the overall cycle time. This was reason enough for the tool specialists at MAPAL to scrutinise these two bores and their machining processes. In the machining process used previously, individual tools with ISO indexable inserts were used for finishing.

The MAPAL team determined that there was great room for improvement here. “We developed a PCD tool that fine machines both the piston and the throttle bores in a single shot,” explains Sripathy. As PCD tools are produced at the MAPAL subsidiary in India, the new tools could be delivered after a short lead time and used immediately.

MAPAL designed a two-stage PCD combination tool for fine machining the piston bore. Four brazed PCD cutting edges are used for boring (21 mm diameter) and two are used for spot facing (30 mm diameter). The machining is performed with a cutting speed of 250 m/min and a feed rate of 600 mm/min.

A three-stage PCD combination tool with two boring steps (diameters of 24.016 mm and 24.664 mm) with two respectively four cutting edges as well as a stage for spot facing (34 mm diameter) uses the same cutting parameters to manufacture the throttle bore in one shot.

„Mit der Werkzeuglösung von MAPAL hat sich nicht nur die Bearbeitungszeit signifikant reduziert, sondern wir können sogar auf den Einsatz eines weiteren Bearbeitungszentrums verzichten – womit freie Kapazitäten geschaffen werden“, ist Krishan Gopal, Production Manager bei Mikuni India, begeistert. „Wir arbeiten mit deutlich höheren Schnittgeschwindigkeiten und fertigen die Bohrungen in einem Schuss. Das führt zu einer immensen Zeitersparnis beim Gesamtprozess – und das ist exzellent“.​​​​​​​

Die Produktion hat also das gesteckte Ziel erreicht, dank deutlich gestiegener Produktivität. Heute fertigt das Unternehmen 2.400 Gehäuse täglich. Nach dieser erfolgreichen Prozessoptimierung hat die Mikuni Geschäftsführung das Projekt als bestes Kaizen-Verbesserungsprojekt des Jahres ausgezeichnet. Das gesamte Team bei Mikuni India ist sehr zufrieden mit den Ergebnissen, die die MAPAL Lösungen erzielen. Und so wollen sie auch zukünftig solche Bauteile mit Werkzeugen von MAPAL bearbeiten.