Page 26 - MetalForming-January-2019-issue

FABRICATION
A Four-Course Fabrication Menu
...filled the agenda of a primo trip around Northern Italy to visit a trio of metalworking companies, and to witness the international debut of a new 3D metal-printing machine by Prima Power.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, PUBLISHER/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
The automotive industry thrives in Europe in no small part due to the contributions of Italian manufacturers and their suppliers. Hailed as the fourth largest Euro- pean automotive market (behind Germany, the United King- dom and France), Italians purchased 1.97 million vehicles in 2017, a healthy 8-percent jump from 2016.
The heart of the Italian automotive industry sits in Turin, the capital city of the Piedmont region located near the bor- ders of France and Switzerland. Known as much or more for its cuisine and wines, Turin and the Piedmont region house some 50 percent of the 2600 companies working in and around Italy’s automotive sector.
Of course, OEM presence (Fiat (FCA), Ferrari and Maserati) is strong, and so is the component market. According to 2017 data from the Italian Automotive Association and the Italian National Institute of Statistics, Italian automotive suppliers exported products worth $23.9 billion worldwide— $1.1 billion to the United States.
MetalForming magazine visited one such supplier, Cecomp SpA, late last year, as part of a trip sponsored by Italian fabricating-equipment manufacturer Prima Power. Proud of its heritage of “giving shape to ideas developed by (automotive) designers,” Cecomp launched in 1978 as spe- cialists in manual hammer forming of prototype sheetmetal parts. Today, as explained to us by Gianluca Forneris, sales managing director and son of the company’s founder, the firm develops and even produces (in low volumes) body panels, subframes and other components. Its equipment list features a lineup of stamping presses, Prima Power 2D laser-cutting machines for blanking, and 3D laser-cutting machines for trimming stamped parts.
Gianluca explained how company growth has hinged on
To trim laser-blanked and stamped parts, automotive-industry supplier Cecomp relies on this trio of 3-kW five-axis Laser Next laser-cutting machines. Included: a Laser Next 1530 (3050 by 1530 by 612-mm work envelope), a Laser Next 2130 (3050 by 2100 by 612-mm work envelope), and the newest, a Laser Next 2141 (4140 by 2100 by 1020-mm). Ten other Prima laser machines are at work in Cecomp’s other facilities.
its experience and expertise in prototype sheetmetal stamp- ing, introduced into the company in 2000, along with 3D laser cutting. He notes the importance of creative styling by combining stamping and cutting technology—dating back to when his father, Giovanni Forneris, trained at the Fiat Styling Centre prior to founding Cecomp.
24 MetalForming/January 2019
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