The Gantry Mill is a machine with a fixed table and movable column which is designed for machining of large workpieces from 5 sides in one setup. The multitask Gantry enables a combination of drilling, milling, turning, grinding and laser hardening operations.
The FERMAT Company, based in the heart of Europe, is one of the leading global suppliers of machine tools. In our production halls with an area of 33.200 square meters, we produce horizontal boring machines (table and floor type) and universal cylindrical grinding machines. Fermat’s annual production is about 100 new machines, which means a turnover approaching 70 million EUR. The company has its own sales and service companies in the USA, China, and India as well as sales and parts/service support in Canada.
FERMAT has recently expanded the production program of the Gantry Mill, a machine with fixed table and movable column which is designed for machining of large workpieces from 5 sides in one setup. The multitask Gantry enables a combination of drilling, milling, turning, grinding and laser hardening operations. The machine is designed for power machining with a high rapid traverse. The Gantry Mill can be completed by a VTL style table enabling the machine to perform both turning and surface grinding.
A fully equipped multitasking machine can replace 4 separate machines, i.e. a Gantry milling machine, a grinder, a vertical lathe and hardening equipment. Idle time accounts for major production time consumption with setup time, logistics between machines, measuring and inspection, etc. Those down times mean substantial costs are being incurred. The multitasking machine reduces the idle time to a minimum. There are further savings of manufacturing and warehouse space, logistics cost between machines including warehousing and operative storage and cost savings of the quantity of the required clamping devices. All of those benefits increase productivity and reduce production costs. By using all multitasking operations the savings can be substantial.
In comparison with horizontal boring machines with a suitable mix of workpieces, the productivity can be increased by about 30%.
The Gantry Mill has a modular construction and uses a lot of proven designs demonstrated in our horizontal mills. The movable Gantry is designed as a "box-in-box" design which ensures maximum rigidity and vibration resistance. The machine is equipped with automatically removable heads which increase machine technology utilization. Automatic tool change is done by KUKA robot.
