UCIMU-SISTEMI PER PRODURRE, the Italian machine tool, robots, automation systems and ancillary products manufacturers’ association and The Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IICCI) is all set to organise “Seminar/ Workshop on Italian Machine Tool technology solutions” on Wednesday, 10th June 2015 at Chennai.

Six Italian companies offering advance technology & manufacturing solutions for Metalworking Machine Tools, Accessories & Tools along with the representatives of the Italian Association will be presenting their technological solutions. The Indian companies will also get an opportunity to discuss directly with the Italian delegates about their specific interest / requirement, customized solutions, future business cooperation after presentations are over with a dedicated one hour B2B meeting session followed by a networking dinner. The seminar is aimed to focus on advanced machining solutions from Italy for automotive sector along with heavy metal fabrication.

Talking about the seminar Nilesh Joshi, Italian Machinery desk in charge in India said “The Indian end users/ representative/ agents will have an opportunity to interact and share their experience and requirements with Italian delegates and learn about their technology offerinngs at the seminar. We want to provide a platform where Indian companies can leverage the opportunity to discuss latest technology and business opportunities with Italian counterparts.”

Details of companies:

• BALANCE SYSTEMS Srl: Process control systems for grinding machines and Balancing machines for rotary components
• BLM SpA: Tube And Wire Processing Machines (Automated Sawing Machines For Tubes And Bars, Laser Cutting Machines For Tubes And Sheet Metal, All Electric, Multi-Axis Wire And Tube Bending Machines, Tube Endforming Machines And Automated Manufacturing Cells.
• LOSMA SpA: Air filtration systems and coolant filtration systems for machine tools
• PROMAC Srl: Italian producer of 5 axis CNC machine tools. The company was founded in 1995 in Salzano, Venice, with the aim of designing and building machine tools equipped with CNC control for use in various industrial sectors, including automotive, aerospace, energy, precision prototypes and complex machining.
• STAM SpA: Sheet metal working machines starting from coil or sheet material. Roll forming lines, coil cut-up lines, slitting lines, coil processing line
• TIESSE ROBOT SpA: Tiesse Robot provides robotized systems for spot welding, arc welding, die casting, gravity casting, low-pressure casting, cutting and deburring, machine tool tending, material handling.

For additional information on seminar and registration, you may contact Mr. Nilesh Joshi – Italian Machinery desk in charge in India via phone : Tel.+91 22 6772 8186 Mob.: +919320888873 or email italianmachinery@indiaitaly.com

Italy-based VM Inox S.a.s, a renowned name in the world of stainless steel fencing and railing, has come a long way since its inception in 1975. The company has grown and evolved with the changing consumer demands; be it security fencing or decorative fencing.

During my second trip to Italy during October, 2014, I had a chance to visit VM Inox and meet Mr. Renato Vanzulli, Owner of the company. I got a lovely warm welcome when I arrived at the facility. I was fascinated witnessing the job shop that dealt with tube and sheetmetal processing work. It was not what I had seen in India, it was huge with minimum manpower (7-8) including, operation, design, admin, or for that matter the owner himself. The whole operation was fully automated; raw material and machines were kept in a systematic way to optimize the space.

Each and every product related to tubes were made by VM Inox, be it a garden bench or company fencing; many beautiful designs made using the BLM laser cutting machines spoke of Mr. Vanzulli’s passion for the same.

While talking to Mr.VanzulliVanzulli, I realised that the fencing demands and preferences have changed over the years, the present day consumers do not consider fencing just as a security option, but also as a decorative element and a status symbol. Keeping these factors in mind Mr Vanzulli has left no stone unturned to fulfill the consumer demands and has invested in high-end technologies. In its 39 years stint, the company has grown to become a one-stop-shop for fencing and railing solutions.

Recommended read: Ingemetal Solar Finds The Right Tube Cutting Solution

Technology & Trends
Looking at the vast opportunities in the fencing and railing industry, the company has invested in various tube processing technologies including a range of machines from BLM Group.

“In the past, almost everything was done manually, even operations like punching and drilling. We even developed our own machine for punching and continued to operate the same way for 30 years with few technologies up gradations,” says Mr Vanzulli with a smile on his face. “But with every passing day we witnessed a growing demand for fast delivery and complex products; that is when we made up our mind to invest in high-end laser technology.”

Talking about the first purchase Mr Vanzulli says, “We bought our first modern machine in 2006 after we came across BLM Group. We bought a ADIGE TS 72 sawing machine for faster cutting operations. The machine was extremely fast and effective, and it is still used for the production of standard high-volume applications. This technology not only helped us cut down on scrap, but also provided us with high cutting speed.”

Use of right technology
During 2007-08, VM Inox bagged a project which involved cutting six meter long tubes, but the ADIGE TS 72 sawing machine being used capacitywas not sufficient to carry out complex cuts required for that project. So the company decided to opt for the combo machine ADILAS 2 from BLM which was able to process both tubes and sheet metal efficiently.

After the machine was installed, BLM group helped VM Inox in the training process. Recalling those days Mr Vanzulli says, “The after sales service from BLM was impressive, they spent time with us in our facility and provided us training which turned out to be very useful.”

After two years, VM Inox replaced the ADILAS 2 system with its advanced successor, the LT COMBO.

Control system from BLM has the capability to apply small corrections on the machine so one does not have to go back to CAD. Talking about the capability of the machine Mr Vanzulli adds, “We had realised the capability of laser, but to put it to use we needed design capability. The off-line programming system ARTUBE from BLM Group is capable of the designing process it made our lives easy. Also, the ARTUBE software supports other CAD software’s STP files, we just need to send the STP file and post process it. As we started receiving 3D drawings from Customers, we also had to update our design capability, so we opted for SolidWorks”.

[blockquote style=”1″]The real estate business in Italy has been unstable since 2008 and affected VM Inox’s fencing business. On one side the volumes reduced and on the other hand there were more ups and downs with shorter and shorter delivery times. Talking about the challenges Mr Vanzulli says, “Our capability to handle different kind of jobs, materials and sizes with laser has helped us sustain through’ these difficult years.”[/blockquote]

Marching Ahead
After adopting laser technology in their process, the company started to look forward to expand their territory and started by taking contracts for job works. “Initially we undertook only fencing and railing work, but the potential of laser technology led us to other job works which at times are very complex. To cater to the growing demand we have started adding more machines to our facility.”

Currently, VM Inox owns four BLM Group machines LT COMBO, LT722, LT8 and TS 72 and is confident to take up any kind of job related to tube and sheet metal.

With the BLM machines, the work efficiency has seen a tremendous rise. “We have one control room from where the cutting programmes are directly sent to all the machines. Today, our manufacturing time is less than 50% compared to what it was before.”

Looking at the capability of BLM machines and to reap added benefits, VM Inox developed another software, standard software for fencing, it is a parametric software that has made the designing process easy and fast for them. “We have developed templates that can work well with BLM Group machines,” says Mr Vanzulli with a grin.

Setting an example
VM Inox is riding high on innovation, from investing in software & technology to upgrading the manufacturing system and much more. The company is planning to install the fourth laser machine from BLM Group soon.

“We believe that a company has to be flexible in order to address customer demands,” concludes Mr Vanzulli.

I have always heard, how important it is to adopt new technology if we want to be competitive in the changing market scenario. After visiting the VMInox facility, I realised how true it is. The company proved that investing in right technology is necessary not only to survive but progress and it can reap good result. VM Inox turned out to be an inspiration to be taken back home for all those job-shop owners and fabricators who are struggling with changing demands in terms of materials to be processed, changing batch sizes, tight delivery schedules and high quality. budding entrepreneurs in machining industry.

By Nishant Kashyap

Looking at the ever increasing demand, the Indian Government is continuously looking for ways to increase the power generation capacity. Having said this, one cannot deny that one of the best ways to achieve this is by utilising the solar energy that is abundantly available in India.

Apart from the government, private companies and various households have also adopted solar energy to fulfil their day-to-day requirement. This has led to a significant increase in the demand for solar panels and related equipment in the country. This demand has certainly called for technologies that can build equipment at faster rate thus increasing the productivity. Flexibility of the equipment is also of paramount importance since each project would require parts with different nature in terms of dimensions, weight and geometrical configuration depending upon the project location and size.

There are various companies that provide equipment directly or indirectly.

Ingemetal Solar is one such company who is involved in providing complete solar solution. Ingemetal Solar, part of Ingemetal Group, was launched as a company in 2006 who has become a full vertical, Integrated solar supplier. Since its inception, Ingemetal has been involved in seven parabolic trough plants. Today, it has become the leading fabricator of parabolic mirror support systems with close to 350 MW of thermo solar energy power plants installed in different countries in the world.

When Spain-based Ingemetal Solar, that also has a manufacturing base in Pune supplied the tubular mirror support structures for the 50MW CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) project installed near Jaiselmer, Rajasthan, India, they extensively used BLM Group Adige’s LT120 Laser tube cutting machine. It was used to cut the tubes required for fabricating these supports. The LT120 automatic laser tube cutting system is best suited for cutting thin walled metallic tubes up to 120 mm diameter generally used in the most important industrial sectors. The machine can also be efficiently used for simple operations like straight cuts. Starting from a tube bundle, all the cutting process (holes, slots, end-cuts etc.) are automatically carried out and a finished ready-to-weld component is unloaded from the machine. Some of its key features include low running costs, proven system reliability, easy and fast production changeovers and fully automatic work cycle.

A CSP plant generally uses Parabolic trough system. In this, the sunlight is is focussed with a parabolic mirror and directed onto an absorber tube located at the focus of the parabolic mirrors. This way, the heat transfer fluid inside the tube is heated and fed into a heat exchanger where it generates steam for the power plant block. The steam drives a turbine to generate electricity the same way a conventional power plants does. If the mirror support structures are not precise and rigid, the mirrors mounted on them will not be able to concentrate the sun rays properly on the tube containing heat transfer fluid and the efficiency of the power plant will go down. So the structures have to be precise and without any residual stresses. The residual stresses are reduced if the weld joints are properly prepared and welded. The laser tube cutting machine plays an important role in preparing the said weld joints.

Joaquin Gracia, Director – Operations, Ingemetal Solar India Pvt Ltd who was directly involved in the projects says, “The power plant has 120 loops on 48 collectors. There are 28 mirrors per collector. Ingemetal processed a total of 6,000 tonnes of tube for this project. The tubes were then welded together to get the support structure.”

The tube sizes used for this project were 30x30x2, 40x40x1, 40x40x1.5, 140x70x5, 140x70x10, 120x80x8 and 120x80x10 mm. A total of 2,000 tonnes of tubes were cut and welded to fabricate around 3,000 tonnes support sturctures.

More than 75% of the tubes used were of 40x40x1 mm and 40x40x1.5 mm. A small part of the cut tubes were imported from Spain. Those were also cut on Adige’s laser tube cutting machines.

Talking about the complexity of the project, Gracia says, “The components we require to make are solar components, the complexity of which can be compared with aeronautic requirements, means very high accuracy and very tight tolerances i.e. 0.1mm, only in this way possible to reach the best efficiency which will give the optimised electrical generations to our clients.”

Ingemetal Solar was looking for laser cutting machines that can produce extremely complex part at a faster rate. The company did its own market survey to understand the reputation of the brand, its efficiency and reputation and finally zeroed down to BLM LT120 Laser tube cutting machine in 2007.

“The kind of activities we do are very precise, we do not wish to take any chances with our quality therefore we went for BLM machine. It was necessary for us to have a high quality proven machine to do our complex jobs and as per our understanding BLM fits to our expectations,” says Gracia.

Before using BLM LT120, Ingemetal Solar was not able to produce the kind of product they expected to. It all changed after the BLM machine came into the picture. With the use of the machine they are able to offer quality products at competitive prices to clients and help make the market develop.

Elaborating on this Gracia says, “Our overall productivity has gone up by 20%, beating our own expectation, hence it has helped us generate more business and helped us fulfill our commitments on or before time.”

BLM is also very particular about the sales and service. Engineers from BLM frequently visit the customers facility for routine check-up of the machines. If required, they also provide time-to-time training and assistance to the customers .

Satisfied with the service Gracia says, “The operating speed and the kind of output this machine delivers makes it unique among various competitive brands available. The after sales service is fantastic in Europe and they are putting in efforts to provide the similar kind of services in India. I would like to highlight that their online support is effective across the globe. For the past seven years we are using the BLM machine and our experience with the company is satisfactory.”BLM has unique online support system in place, all the machines are connected thro’ internet for Tele-Diagnosis so that BLM’s after sales service engineers can access the machine to help operators to solve problems, update software etc. Apart from telephonic support, web-based video connection is also used to facilitate the customer service.

Ingemetal is one such company that takes extra efforts to educate its vendors and spread awareness about the latest technologies.

“As per our policy we support our vendors with the information about the best solutions available and persuade them to invest in the best technologies. Following our policy we are making our Indian vendors aware of the benefits of BLM tube laser machine and trying to convince them to invest in the machines to get the best productivity and to be more competitive,” avers Gracia.

India being a price concious market poses as the biggest challenge for companies functioning here. There are many who do not realise that investing in technology will help them in the long run.

Talking about experience in Indian industry Gracia opines, “In India business houses prefer to invest more on man power than technology. Contrary to this belief we are trying to educate and make our suppliers and customers understand the benefit of the technology and the machine, as in the longer run it will not only be more effective as it will help better production, but also be more accurate and cheaper. We hope and expect that we will be able to convince our vendors to go for BLM machine.”

Just like Ingemetal, there are many happy customers of BLM worldwide, but Gracia hopes to witness BLM having a stronger presence in India. Talking about the future plans Vinayak Joshi, Market Development Manager (for India) from BLM Group confirms that BLM is in process of strengthening its presence in the Indian market.

BLM GROUP, leader in tube processing technologies such laser cutting to cold saw, bending, end-forming, measurement, with a worldwide presence showcased its three revolunetiory technologies at recently concluded Tube & Wire 2014 exhibition. The company showcased 4-RUNNER – New system for manufacturing tubular components in Copper and Aluminum, E-Flex  – An addition to the family of wire bending machines and LT-FREE – An ideal system for laser cutting of pre-formed tubes and 3D sheet metal components. 

4-RUNNER 
4-RUNNER provides a complete production process on tubes starting from a coil: straightening, end-forming (up to six stages including facing and rolling), bending, cutting and controlled unloading of the finished part, all in one. The unquestionable advantage of this system is that it can be configured as per user requirements (only bending or complete with end-forming) to provide the optimal manufacturing solution. The 4-RUNNER has the capability of bending with fixed and variable radius in 3D. One can also combine the draw bending with multiple radii and flex bending on the same component. 4-Runner is an ALL Electric machine, this means higher productivity and accuracy while having lower electrical consumption, reduced set-up time and maintenance.

E-Flex
The E-FLEX is the new automatic single-head, all-electric, CNC wire bending machine to complement the double head wire bending machine DH2010. The machine is equipped with two clockwise and anticlockwise bending turrets; it is perfect for 3D bending and allows multiple bending technologies to be combined on the same part within the same cycle. Coil feeding ensures fully automatic operation. A chamfering option can be added for perfect, burr-free cuts. The cutting device is a controlled axis. Programming direction and stroke can be programmed to minimize cycle time.

LT-FREE 
The LT-FREE five-axis laser cutting system is ideal for three-dimensional parts, bent, hydroformed or pre-assembled tubes or flat and deep-drawn sheet metal components. Traditional cutting, drilling, piercing, milling and deburring operations, which are normally carried out in sequence can now be performed on a single machine in a single cycle. Finished parts are produced without ‘work in progress’ inventory, consequently reducing material handling costs and streamlining the entire production process – as well as downsizing the space needed for storage.

The system is equipped with a fibre laser capable of processing any type of metallic components (copper, aluminum, brass, stainless steel, galvanized steel, mild steel etc.) at high speed with excellent quality. 3D visual graphic programming (VGP3D) and constant visual monitoring of the bending zone by means of a camera make the machine easy, comfortable and safe to use.