In the September issue of MTD magazine, we reported on our trip to Prima Power in Turin and the visit to the company’s HQTC (Headquarters and Technology Centre). As well as investigating the innovation that is literally pouring out of this facility, we spoke with Luca Bianchini, 3D Laser System Sales and Business Development Manager. By Rhys Williams
Luca told us how Prima Power has impacted the automotive industry down the years and how it has been the fulcrum for so many innovations in the marketplace today. For readers that may have missed the September feature, Prima Power is the laser and sheet metal business unit of the Prima Industrie Group. With a product range that encompasses 2D and 3D laser, punching and combined punch/laser and punch/shear machines, press brakes, panel benders, FMS and automation, and software, the company has eight manufacturing facilities spread across Italy, Finland, the USA, and China.
Starting the conversation by looking back at the automotive industry in Northern Italy and how Prima became the benchmark in the sector, Luca says: ‘Our company was established around 45 years ago, and was originally known as Prima Progetti, developing software for various applications, including measuring machinery. From this they went on to develop the first double air-conditioning system for a local automotive manufacturer, to manage the temperature inside the vehicle.”
“At the same time, there were rumours that a CO2 laser was being developed to cut through material at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. Our company had a measuring machine, so they put a laser on the machine to move the laser over a part. This was the very first application for laser cutting. It was cutting carpets of vehicles with lasers for a US automotive group. When the laser became powerful enough to cut metal, they were used to weld the roof of the same manufacturers’ cars. In the early 1980s, a local automotive manufacturer had over 100,000 employees and a lot of staff were manually cutting metal for prototypes. So, they developed the first 3D laser cutting machine. The machine was typically a measuring machine with a laser head, but there was no CNC control to manage the laser process – a company was opened called Prima Electronics to develop the CNC and the PLC, and to this very day, we still manufacture our servo drives and controls.”
“In the 1980s, our competitors didn’t have 3D lasers, only 2D lasers. Through the 1990s we grew by acquisition, buying a company in Switzerland for 2D laser technology. At the start of the 2000’s we bought two more companies and in 2008, we acquired Finn Power – all of our acquisitions evolve around our progress in the laser and sheet metal industry.”
Looking more specifically at the technology, Luca adds: “3D laser was always a niche until the late 1990s when the Swedes developed the first hot stamping steel technology for its vehicle body panels. That made their cars much safer and lighter. However, the only way to cut this material was with a 3D laser – when other vehicle manufacturers started to catch up and use this technology, the 3D laser became popular throughout the entire automotive industry and beyond. When I joined Prima in 2006, it was the Germans that were adopting our technology for hot-stamped body panels. The first challenge between us and a competitor was cutting the B-pillar protection panel. At the time, the pillar was 2mm thick and with a CO2 laser, the cycle time was 75 seconds. It was a race between us and our competitors, as each customer came to us asking ‘how fast can you cut it?’”
“In the modern vehicle chassis there are more than 30 hot stamped parts – multiply this by the cycle times and the volumes – you would need thousands of 3D laser machines. At one particular manufacturer, there were 27 parts for 500,000 vehicles per year, by 2015 they were producing 15 million vehicles in China. Now, we have more than 50 million vehicles produced with hot-stamped steel – exponentially growing the need for 3D laser machines. During the period from 2008-12, we were also integrating the new Fiber Laser technology – which meant we could double the cutting speed. Initially, the machines were faster than the laser technology but with Fiber Laser, the technology became faster than the machines. Ever since we have been making machines faster and faster as laser technology is no longer a limitation. Looking back at the German B pillars, we were cutting at 7 to 8m/min but the arrival of Fiber Laser moved that to 10, 12 and now beyond 15m/min.”
The move to automation
“It was the crisis in 2008 that opened the market for us. Before the crisis, Americans never considered saving fuel, making cars more resistant and safer or ultimately capable of improved fuel consumption. When the US had the crisis, these factors became important and we started selling 3D laser machines for hot stamping applications to the US – this was because the American companies started switching their manufacturing methods to fall in line with what was already adopted in Europe. The US market manufactures 17 million cars a year. Once upon a time, the machine was faster than the laser; then with Fiber Laser, the laser was faster than the machine. Now, we have evolved the machine to keep pace with the laser, but we have a new challenge – changeover, the human element and automation.”
“In 2010, I visited an Italian manufacturer and I recall the machine always having 10am and evening downtime. They were producing A-pillars – a 2m part that weighed 10.5kg with a cycle time of 60 seconds for laser cutting. I investigated the downtime issue – essentially the shift started at 6am and the operator was changing a 10.5kg part every 1 minute, so by 10am the operator had shifted more than 2.5tonnes. Exhausted operators would eventually trip out the safety curtain and at a large plant, the maintenance engineers would take more than 10 minutes to get to the machine. This type of scenario is why we are looking at complete automation.”
“Naturally, we develop the ergonomics of our machines for the operators, as we know automation is not ideal for every operation. Where we are further evolving is software development, integrating our technology with the customers’ automation systems. Each customer will use different automation platforms and production lines – and our software and machines need to work across multiple platforms. What we are doing now is developing fixtures and workholding as well as simulation technology and more to coordinate with customers’ automation requirements – we are a complete turnkey supplier. Looking to the future, everyone is finding it difficult to find skilled technicians and well-developed people. For us, the goal is to simplify the process. Ideally, you should be able to push a button and the machine can work by itself. This utopia is not easy and it requires a lot of development, but this is where we are heading.”
“The other area of potential change is the evolution of the business model. Companies are moving from machine or turnkey solution purchases – to selling machines on a cost-per-part basis. The machine is a service. If you ask a customer what their product is, in most instances, they don’t have a product – their purpose is to go from sheet metal to the finished part for their customer. What happens in the middle is important, but it is not the goal, it is the means. Manufacturers are asking for more flexibility and the ability of CNC machines to make a lot of things was the starting point. Now, manufacturers want extremely flexible machines capable of making a lot of different things – they want to be flexible in volumes. That is the most difficult challenge and one we are constantly evolving,” concludes Luca.
Approaching The End Game
Luca told a fascinating story on Prima Powers’ automotive pedigree, the speed and agility of the machines and the integration of automation – much of this was on show in the HQTC. Added to the machines discussed in the September edition of MTD magazine (see the edition here http://read.mtdpublishing.com/september-2022), the HQTC also houses the company’s 2D Fiber Laser, the Laser Genius+ 1530. Undoubtedly the quickest machine in the HQTC, the Laser Genius+ has an axis speed of 180m/min and acceleration of 2.8g – all whilst retaining accuracy and repeatability to 0.03mm.
And when it comes to automation, Barry Rooney kept the ‘pièce de résistance’ to the end of the tour, the PSBB (Punch, Shear, Buffer & Bend) System. The state-of-the-art FMS cell started with a robot-loaded FL Storage Series sheet stacking system that accommodated over 130 tons of material. Demonstrating the system, a robot unloaded a 3 by 1.5m steel sheet from the FL system and passed it to the Shear Genius EVO. The Shear Genius punched forms and holes, tapped specific holes, and subsequently cut the sheet….and a part popped out to a buffer area where parts that do not require subsequent bending can be extracted. However, in the demonstration, the part was flipped over in the buffer area and subsequently passed to the next machine – the Express Bender EBe 2720.
The EBe 2720 servo-electric panel bender loaded the small part, centred and positioned it, conducted its bending operation, extracted the sheet and rotated it – and then folded the second, third and fourth edges. Once the part was finished, the EBe2720 at the end of the 20m+ long cell presented the part to the extraction point. Impressed by the level of automation, what was to follow took us by surprise.
Whilst hypnotised by this relatively small part travelling through the buffer and flip-over station to the panel bender and subsequently the extraction point, we could still hear the Shear Genius EVO punching away at the other end of the cell. Unbeknown to us, the programme for the cell was to take the 3 by 1.5m sheet and produce six completely different parts – not one! In a cycle time barely longer than it took to pull out a camera, the cell had ejected 6 parts with different sizes, bends, forms and even threaded and deburred holes. To get a greater understanding of this fascinating technology, please scan the QR Codes in this feature.
Completely synchronised to minimise dwell times and maximise throughput, the cell is managed by the TULUS software that can connect ERP, Industry 4.0 and even automated programming. The PSBB is fully configurable and can even be connected to a Prima Power Night Train mass material storage system – essentially making the possibilities to connect multiple machines, buffer zones, storage and load/unload stations seemingly endless. If Prima Power has already achieved this level of speed, flexibility and automation – where does the evolution end?
