WAFIOS’ intelligent machine enhancements support operators and improve efficiency while upholding 130 years of mechanical expertise.
By Clare Scott, Managing Editor - Manufacturing Group
German manufacturer WAFIOS AG has a long history with wire, starting as a producer of hand-operated machines for chain link fencing in the 1890s. More than 130 years later, WAFIOS has expanded its capabilities, now designing, developing, and manufacturing machinery for various wire, tube, and spring processing applications.
It’s also expanded its physical presence, with multiple sites across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The WAFIOS Midwest Technical Center in Mokena, Illinois was opened in 2015 as a collaborative workspace between engineers and customers as well as a hub for technical education and events. Earlier this year, the company hosted its second annual Medical Tech Day, a networking event for the medical device manufacturing industry and showcase for its own fast-growing range of medical manufacturing solutions.
The medical device market is one of the fastest-growing manufacturing sectors worldwide. Rising demand for minimally invasive procedures, auto injectors, and high-precision medical instruments is increasing the need for automated production technologies capable of delivering consistently high quality while meeting strict regulatory requirements.
“Our recent developments for the medical device industry focus on maximum precision, maximum output, and process control, as well as intelligent operator support,” says Member of the Board Joerg Eisele.
These solutions include the BMZ 6, a CNC tube bending machine designed for highly precise, small-diameter tubes and wires such as cannulas and surgical instruments. Another recent development is the FUL 26M, a high-performance spring coiling machine for stainless steel compression springs commonly used in medical devices such as inhalers and auto injectors for drug delivery (i.e. EpiPens). It’s linked to an integrated heat treatment unit called the HTU 12, creating an automated production line that’s impressive to watch. The fully integrated process eliminates manual handling between coiling and heat treatment, improving process stability, traceability, and repeatability while reducing the risk of part damage.
At the Medical Tech Day, service engineer Christopher Mandeville demonstrated the full workflow of wires neatly coiling before being pneumatically conveyed through a hose over to the HTU 12 for heat treatment at a rate of hundreds of springs per hour.
Mandeville watched over the process as it happened on the machines and on a screen displaying digital twins of the springs plus notations of temperature, positioning, and the other information required to ensure each spring came out of the machine meeting precise requirements. He tapped a few buttons to demonstrate a spring-copying function in WAFIOS’ intelligent software program, which then scanned a recently manufactured spring, generated a program based on its measurements, and, with the tap of another button, allowed Mandeville to slightly tweak its pitch and diameter. This function, he explained, removes the need to reprogram the machine each time a new spring design is loaded.
It’s a long way from the manually operated machinery WAFIOS began with in the 1890s.
WAFIOS Assistant and myWAFIOS.ai: Tackling the skilled labor shortage
In the past year, WAFIOS has significantly expanded its portfolio of digital technologies to support operators, simplify machine operation, and increase manufacturing efficiency. While artificial intelligence (AI) plays an important role, WAFIOS views digitalization as a combination of intelligent software, process automation, machine integration, and decades of manufacturing expertise rather than AI alone.
The driving force behind these developments is the growing shortage of skilled workers. As experienced employees retire and machine technology becomes increasingly complex, manufacturers need new ways to transfer knowledge quickly and efficiently.
The WAFIOS Assistant is a digital operator support system that provides validated WAFIOS documentation, machine manuals, service knowledge, and troubleshooting expertise in structured step-by-step instructions with images and videos. Operators are guided directly to the information they need, reducing training effort and setup times.
“We had read some talent surveys saying 75% of companies struggle with finding skilled workers,” Eisele says. “We see it worldwide, and for that reason it was very important to build up a technology to help bridge that gap.”
Complementing the WAFIOS Assistant is myWAFIOS.ai, an AI-powered knowledge assistant that allows operators to ask questions in natural language and instantly receive machine-specific answers. Access is provided through a patent-pending dynamic QR code, while the machine itself remains completely isolated from the internet.
The upcoming Pro version of myWAFIOS.ai enables customers to integrate their own work instructions, maintenance procedures, quality documents, and third-party manuals. Through WAFIOS’ one-way knowledge concept, customer-specific information always remains under the customer’s control, is never used to train WAFIOS systems, and is never shared with other users.
A strong foundation
The spring-copying function demonstrated during Medical Tech Day is one example of WAFIOS’ iQ functions – machine-specific software tools developed to increase quality, reduce setup times, improve process stability, and boost productivity.
The demonstrated iQspring2FUL scans an existing spring, automatically generates an optimized machine program, and significantly reduces the time required to produce new spring variants. Across its spring, wire, and tube processing portfolio, WAFIOS offers a range of iQ functions tailored to the specific requirements of each machine and application.
“At WAFIOS, we believe the future of manufacturing is not about replacing people with artificial intelligence. It is about empowering them,” Eisele says. “I think that’s a very important point because by combining over 130 years of mechanical engineering expertise with intelligent digital technologies, we help manufacturers overcome the shortage of skilled workers, preserve valuable knowledge, and make production more efficient without compromising precision and reliability.”
The company isn’t trying to replace its machines with digital technology, either – that century-plus of experience has resulted in mechanically precise, reliable, solidly constructed machines, some of which were installed generations ago and are still in use. WAFIOS hasn’t changed its core machine concepts, instead enhancing them with smart features – but only when they work with the existing foundations.
For example, a recently introduced Smart Pay-Off Interface (SPI) integrates the machine and the pay-off unit (which feeds the wire into the machine) into a single system. The machine itself stays the same, but the SPI allows the pay-off unit to intelligently interact with it to detect when speed changes are required or other adjustments need to be made.
The SPI, iQ functions, and WAFIOS Assistant/myWAFIOS.ai duo are the three major digital upgrades WAFIOS rolled out this year, and they’re all designed with one main goal in mind: operator support. The company is continuing to develop new options based on customer needs, but always considering what’s possible with existing machinery and how they can adapt rather than reinvent. Their proven mechanical concepts, as Eisele concludes, are the basis for long machine lifetimes, which result in long customer partnerships – maybe not going all the way back to the 1890s, but it’s possible traces of those original hand-operated chain link fencing machines can still be found in the automated descendants on shop floors today.
