Zoller Inc. hosted its annual Zollerfest open house on October 2nd and 3rd at its North American headquarters in Ann Arbor, MI.
Zollerfest is an annual technology days and open house event that combines a celebration of the company’s German heritage and its presetting, measuring, inspection, tool management and automation offerings. More than 100 guests visited Zoller Inc. across the two-day event, coming from a variety of industry segments ranging from aerospace and defense to job shops.
Despite the day’s Oktoberfest-inspired décor, complete with staff in lederhosen and dirndls, Zollerfest is technology driven. Zoller’s Industry 4.0 Technology Center houses 39 machines and solutions, including the two latest additions, the Zoller »aralon« and »gemini 2« for crankshaft milling cutter measurement.
These machines offer enhanced measurement accuracy and also reduce the time spent measuring crankshaft milling cutters, which can in some cases take hours to measure using other methods. Zoller says that these machines can measure a crankshaft milling cutter in minutes.
Zoller offered several keynote presentations. Georg Maerz, vice president of Zoller Inc., started both days by delivering his presentation “The Zoller Experience: Driving Success in Global Manufacturing for Over 70 Years.” With the theme of Zollerfest 2019 being ‘Zoller Solutions: Your Key To Success,’, Jerry Busche, president and CEO of PDQ and Impact CNC followed up on Maerz’s presentation with a firsthand account of his experiences with Zoller and how PDQ and Impact CNC have put Zoller solutions to use.
“I had experience with Zoller before and it was amazing when I was using it on the floor,” Busche said. “It was an easy decision for me to buy Zoller. Everyone knows the Zoller name and the world-class product that it is. As customers recognize that you’re using [ZOLLER] to produce your product, they have a confidence level in your company that you’ll produce a good product.”
In addition to the keynotes, Zollerfest featured technical sessions at various stations, discussing subjects ranging from basic tool presetting to CAM interfaces, to Cost per Part with Tool Analysis.
Anthony Westfall, TMS technical support engineer at Zoller, demonstrated Zoller’s cost per part feature, presenting the technology live.
“Cost per part provides a significant benefit for large-scale production facilities,” Westfall said. “We were excited to be able to demonstrate cost per part with tool analysis live at Zollerfest, and it was very well received by our guests.”
