Page 12 - Machines Italia Vol. XIII Next Generation Manufacturing

AUTOMATION
line for silk screening on glass, with CNCs online and conveyance into a common tempering furnace. As Righi sees it, automation and robot- ics are not a “one size fits all” solution. “It’s a world.” As such, Studio 1 isn’t focused on one field or activity, but any process that can benefit from automated handling. And, said Righi, “We make hundreds of lay- outs in a year, just to find the optimal solution for the customer.”
Automating the artisan
Aerospace, lighting, water treatment, agriculture, roofing, and ventilation are among the disparate industries that rely on metal spinning, according to Gianfranco Pirastu, branch and sales man- ager for the US headquarters of Nova Sidera Metal Forming Srl (Castell’Alfero, Italy, www.novasidera.com). Metal spinning, ex- plained Pirastu, is a niche in the metal forming field in which a disc or tube of metal is spun on a lathe and formed into the desired shape using pressure, rather than cutting. It’s especially useful for high qual- ity, seamless, rotationally symmetrical parts produced in volumes that don’t justify using a press brake. Things like an architectural light fix- ture or a rocket nose cone. And as Pirastu put it, “there’s no airplane flying that doesn’t have at least one part spun on a lathe, and our customers serve some of the biggest names...There are parts for stra- tegic industries that can be made successfully only through the metal spinning process.” He added that metal spinning has remained an art to some extent, “and the skill of the metal spinner is crucial.” So in some cases a skilled operator can economically make parts that would otherwise not be suited to the process.
Nova Sidera, a member of UCIMU-SISTEMI PER PRODURRE— Cinisello Balsamo, Italy, Italian Machine Tools, Robots, and Auto- mation Manufacturers’ Association (www.ucimu.it/en/home), intro- duced CNC spinning lathes decades ago and by the mid-1990s hand
spinning was “almost gone in Europe,” said Pirastu. “But in the US, especially in California, it’s prevalent and that, in a way, shocked us.”
A big part of his job is convincing people in North America who know the technique that automating the process is both doable and more efficient. Luckily Nova Sidera makes that comparatively easy with a unique programming approach that retains an artisanal flavor. You setup a Nova Sidera machine with a joystick, such that as you spin the part “you really feel the metal moving below your hand,” as Pirastu described it. Once you’ve finished the part “by hand,” you’re left with a program you can then optimize on the touch screen con- trol. From there the machine processes the remaining parts com- pletely automatically. It’s a beautiful marriage that “retains the special connection between the expert spinner and the metal,” as Pirastu put it. That’s important for several reasons.
First, it addresses the fear people have about moving to an au- tomatic machine. “They’re scared about the programming part...The time you need to program to switch from production to production.” But customers quickly see that they can “switch six times in a day, with six different tools, and do many things because it’s so easy to repro- gram it. We have customers who don’t even store programs because it’s so easy to redo it,” observed Pirastu. Nova Sidera’s approach also addresses the variations that occur in this type of metal forming. “It’s a world where every time you change a shape or a batch of metal, everything changes,” explained Pirastu. “So that’s why you need an efficient machine that allows you to get back to work in a few minutes.”
Finally, Nova Sidera’s fast, intuitive programming approach helps customers deal with the reality of shrinking lot sizes. “The spinners used to produce hundreds, or thousands, of a certain part,” Pirastu said. “But now sometimes orders are for 50, 60 parts. So a machine changes several times a day. You need a machine that you can repro-
Studio 1 Automazioni Industriali automates processes ranging from the production of mosaic tiles to automotive wheel rings .
12 Volume XIII | www.machinesitalia.org