Just-in-time kit production enabled by a high level of automation and smart technology

"After 27 years in the sheet metal industry, many years in production and sales, and the last eight as a machine sales specialist, I’ve picked up some key drivers to keep in mind," says Erik Arden, and continues: "Flexible automation means transforming sheet metal into a wide range of products cost-effectively and without manual operator set-ups, through a progressive production flow, enabled by proprietary punching, shearing/cutting, bending and panel bending technologies in dedicated process steps."

Being competitive today isn’t only about producing individual parts quickly; the real challenge lies in the efficiency of every single process step. Flexible, autonomous and smart systems are decisive for managing production, while improving quality and reducing lead times and scrap.

Efficiency gains come from the ability to reduce or, ideally, eliminate, redundant activities and low-value work, which typically occur upstream and downstream of individual systems for preparation, feeding and interfacing.

"There’s no point focusing on extremely high-performance technology without addressing the bottlenecks before and after production. Saving a few seconds on the cycle time of a single processing step brings little benefit if rework, intermediate stages between workstations, or a burdensome process full of redundancy, delays and inefficiencies cancels out the efficiency gained through the new system’s performance," explains Erik Arden.

As the plant visit comes to an end, we can clearly see the common thread: flexibility, and the strength of the Italian machine builder Salvagnini’s manufacturing philosophy throughout the manufacturing process, with a strong emphasis on digitalization/software and, ultimately, virtually zero set-up time.

Salvagnini is, at its core, known for large production lines, and today we offer customers increasingly smart machines with fast, automatic changeovers. This is ideal for kit production or batch size one even with high throughput and small batch runs, supported by rapid changeovers.

"Manufacturing companies often struggle with expensive changeovers, long set-up times and shrinking batch sizes, while the number of orders to manage has increased the demands for more automated layouts," says Erik Arden.

And here Erik highlights something particularly important: "Our philosophy has always been and still is to maximize automation and robotics throughout the process. With our solutions, companies can achieve fast changeovers, which are so critical today. With our unique software, we can synchronize the machines so they automatically carry out every step all the way to a finished part. One example we’ve seen today is a manufacturing system consisting of an MD storage system, S4+P4 and B3.ATA."

As mentioned, the line is fully automated and connected to Revent’s MRP system. Direct order handling is managed via Salvagnini’s OPS software, which routes jobs through a fully automated storage system, on to the S4+P4 production line and the B3.ATA, and finally to the assembly stations.