THINK BIG

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Since January 2021, the largest single piece measuring machine ever developed and built by WENZEL has been in operation. It was placed at the company Forma Maschinenbau Zerspanungstechnologie GmbH & Co. KG, which is thus taking its already outstanding performance portfolio to a new dimension. Think big, but please be accurate to the thousandth. This sums up the philosophy of Forma Maschinenbau Zerspanungstechnologie GmbH & Co. KG can be summed up in a nutshell. The company, headquartered in Borken, Germany, is one of the "big players" in the industry - literally. With production capacities for workpieces up to 24 meters long, 5 meters high and 160 tons in weight, the company clearly exceeds the usual performance dimensions. "Well, we're not exactly a garage company," says senior company boss Norbert Groß-Onnebrink, who runs Forma together with his son Tobias. In fact, everything here is somewhat larger and more impressive than usual. Starting with more than 10,000 square meters of state-of-the-art hall space and a building front completely equipped with solar modules (1 MW total output) to modern ventilation systems in all halls that provide a total of 100,000 cubic meters of temperature-controlled fresh air per hour. Not to mention the impressive modern machinery with 7 large machines, 10 machining centers and 4 lathes for the large parts or small parts produced here in the highest quality as individual or series parts.

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And "think big" now also applies at Forma in the area of metrology: In the form of the largest WENZEL gantry measuring machine ever built to date. A performance giant with a measuring range of 2,600 x 4,500 x 1,750 millimeters and a total weight of 27,330 kilograms, whereby the base plate alone, which is precision-lapped from a granite block, already weighs 18 tons. The LH 2617 was developed and realized on the basis of the WENZEL LH 2015, whose measuring range of 2,000 x 3,000 x 1,500 millimeters was extended accordingly. This was no easy undertaking, since the performance capacity of the highly developed LH 2015 initial machine was basically considered to be technologically exhausted. But only in principle...

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Because WENZEL would not be WENZEL if the development department had not set about "breaking" previous boundaries. Not least motivated by the Forma company managers, who prioritized a WENZEL solution after an intensive market comparison. And inspired by the long-standing WENZEL partner Ingenieurbüro Klostermann from Remscheid, whose trust in the solution competence of WENZEL was ultimately the inspiring spark for the project. A trust that was to pay off: Because already during the first acceptance test by Forma at the supplier's plant, the required accuracy of "below 5 micrometers" was achieved almost effortlessly - and ultimately specified down to 3.8 + L/300 [μm]. This was not least thanks to the outstanding ambient conditions in the specially redesigned, air-conditioned measuring room at Forma. It was also crucial for its use to place a measuring machine here that does not require its own additional foundation. As is the case with the construction concept of a single-piece measuring machine - but with the required measuring range was not available on the market until now. Until now ... until WENZEL came into play. Since then, thinking big down to thousandths has been Forma's confidently mastered daily business, even in (subcontract) measurement.