Page 27 - MetalForming-January-2019-issue

10 Presses, and a Trio of Multiaxis Laser Cutters
Touring the Turin facility (one of five the company operates worldwide), we spied 10 presses running, production lots of 300 to 400 in a very clean pressroom. Feeding the presses is a state-of-the-art laser-blanking operation highlighted by a 4- kW laser-cutting machine (a Prima Power Laser Genius LGF 2040). A Prima Power Night Train FMS automated material- management system keeps the Laser Genius stocked with material, and the automated setup also includes a sorting system consisting of four cartesian grippers mounted on a mechanical double-gantry structure, with one pair of grippers mounted on each gantry.
Also noted: a full factory manufacturing execution system tied into a fully evolved Industry 4.0 initiative, to track pro- duction and ensure optimal equipment utilization. This certainly proved to be an eye-opener, as I learned that the Italian Ministry of Economic Development launched, late in 2016, what it calls the Digital Tax Index—significant tax incentives designed to support Industria 4.0, Italy’s national strategy for digitizing industry. The five cornerstones of the Industria 4.0 plan, according to the Ministry website:
1. Tax incentives for investments in innovative startups and SMEs.
2. Super-depreciation—a 40-percent increase in the ordi- nary depreciation deduction for investments in new indus- trial machinery.
3. Hyper-depreciation—a 150-percent increase in the ordinary depreciation deduction that applies to selected industrial equipment of an Industry 4.0 character (machinery that can exchange information with other systems through the Internet of Things).
4. Tax credit for research and development.
5. Patent box—a 50-percent reduction in corporate tax on income deriving from direct and indirect use of intangible assets (patent rights, industrial design and models, know- how, and copyrighted software).
As a final fabrication step, stamped parts route to one of three 3-kW five-axis laser-cutting machines (Prima Power Laser Next models). These machines, according to Prima Power officials, are designed, developed, manufactured and tested for the production of automotive and aerospace com- ponents, particularly high-strength-steel parts. Three different models of the Laser Next family are installed at the Cecomp factory in Piobesi (Torino): 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 work envelope), which Prima Power introduced in April 2018. Ten other Prima laser machines are at work in the company’s other facilities.
Highly Automated Switchgear Fabrication
Industry 4.0 technology also starred during our Italian
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