Sometimes it's good to stop and think about how the workholding in manufacturing industry has developed over the years.

The evolution of workholding has significantly transformed the manufacturing industry, leading to better precision, efficiency, and safety. In the early days, the traditional vise was the most commonly used workholding method, providing a stable and secure grip on the workpiece.
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However, as technology advanced, so did the need for more advanced workholding solutions. As soon as NC machines hit the market, it was realized that due to their large size, the traditional machine vise is very rarely suitable for attaching batches larger than one piece. This led to the development of various workholding solutions, and more recently, modular clamping systems like OK-VISE.
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These systems provide a flexible, accurate, and repeatable means of clamping, making them ideal for modern manufacturing processes that demand high levels of precision and efficiency. If you want to read more about evolution of workholding, click the link in the comments.
The evolution of workholding continues to shape the future of manufacturing, and it will be exciting to see what innovations will come next!

Hydraulic clamping is available in all our Fixturing Concept systems. Case: Fixturing components for generic-purpose workholding.

We are proud to announce that one of the highlights at the EMO show will be our Fixturing Concept with hydraulic clamping. This is a concept that can be used not only in robotic loading, but also in semi-automated solutions where loading is done manually and automation is used to save clamping time.

One of the most fascinating cases we have ever had was our recent turnkey concept for precision instrument manufacturing.

We look forward to welcoming you to our stand Hall 3 / H21

In addition to our world-renowned clamping method, we will also demonstrate our innovative Fixturing Concept, which enables easy and reliable fixture building.
NEW: Automation & Digitalization

The world is digitalizing – and we are developing too. The automated clamping and wireless force verification system DIGIFORCE are the stars of the show.

With wireless DIGIFORCE, the operators of machining centres can now verify that the clamping force is high enough to hold the work piece check that the clamping force is not so high as to damage the work piece measure the machining forces.

We are looking for distributors for constantly growing range of our products around the world.

Our products are available through a global distribution network and can reach even the most distant places within a few working days. Our network consists of over 30 distributors around the globe, and all together we distribute our products to nearly 50 countries. If we do not have a distributor in your country, kindly contact us directly for further assistance and service.

Kytola Instruments, who has now installed a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) from the Finnish company Fastems, are extremely happy with their investment. Together with 14 new tooling blocks supplied by OK-VISE Oy, including several Fixturing Concept and Multi-Rail setups, the system has improved their flexibility significantly.

Tooling blocks

In total, Kytola is machining today about 100 products with two HMC machining centers in their FMS, typically each component is machined in two set-ups.

Kytola Instruments is using two major OK-VISE technologies in minimising their set-up times:

1) Multi-Rail RM units

Using this generic-purpose concept the stopper and clamp modules, side guides and parallels can be easily moved in the base rail. Additionally base rail position can also be easily changed using tooling block with 25x50 mm grid pattern.

2) Sub plates with OK-LOCK

When modifying the fixture is not possible, the whole fixture plate can be changed in less than a minute using OK-LOCK zero-point positioning system. Kytola has been using mostly dedicated sub plates in the past. Today - thanks to the flexibility of Multi-Rail system - the amount of dedicated fixtures has gone down. Now only 20% of the fixtures are dedicated sub plates, the remaining Fixtures are built using Multi-Rail units.

OK-VISE has now developed a system for clamping force verication. Now, there is finally a system where the end users working on the machining centers can

a) verify that the clamping force is high enough to hold the workpiece
b) check that clamping force is not too high to damage the work piece
c) measure the machining forces

Additionally, we have FIXTURE SCADA system to collect statictics from a pool of fixtures. This is useful for analytics and development purposes.

This system will be shown in Fastems Open House in Issum, Germany on 20th and 21st June 20017.
Next presentaton will be during EMO in Hannover in September, and we start supplying the system to customers in October