Price Industries in FFJournal: Repeatable, Lights-Out Bending with the R-Brake

A recent FFJournal feature looks at how HVAC manufacturer Price Industries automated its manual bending with two SafanDarley R-Brake 130-ton robotic cells. They run continuously, and Price now turns out thousands of parts lights-out.

What the article covers

FFJournal sets the story in a busy U.S. manufacturing market, where rising demand is running into labor and skill shortages. Price saw the squeeze as a chance to get its operations ready for growth. Manufacturing engineer Alex Herring says the push let the team tighten its fabrication processes without giving up part quality or the responsiveness customers count on.

Price already knew SafanDarley's press brakes, so when a growing workload pushed it to automate, it chose the R-Brake. SafanDarley and its distributor, Capital Equipment Technologies, installed two R-Brake 130-ton cells in 2024, pairing the electric press brakes with gantry-mounted robots.

Herring says the cycle times were the fastest he'd seen, and part quality beat the other machines Price evaluated. A part now takes under two minutes, a pace he says nobody could hold by hand over a long run. Add high uptime and minimal scrap, and total cost of ownership drops.

Offline programming turned out to be one of the biggest gains. Press brake programming usually means adjusting bend sequences, tooling and backgauge positions by trial and error at the machine. Price now programs parts in simulation software instead. Zachary Moncrief, a manufacturing engineer and programmer at Price, says every job is validated before it reaches the floor, which cuts setup time and scrap.

The compact footprint makes the cell easier to get at for maintenance and tool changes, and safer, since operators interact with it less. Herring says installation, training and sample runs all went smoothly. For a shop where metal forming is critical, he adds, the supplier should be a long-term partner who understands the industry, and for Price that's SafanDarley.

Why it matters

Lights-out bending only works if every part comes out the same with nobody there to check. The R-Brake runs the robot, backgauge and press brake control as one synchronized system. Its O-frame keeps bend angles repeatable, and the servo-electric drive holds tonnage consistent across the full bed. Jobs are proven in simulation before they run. So Price can leave the cells running overnight and unload finished parts in the morning.