Prima Power Helps Your Shop Evolve by Integration

When Finn Power and Prima Industrie joined forces in 2008 to create Prima Power, the companies’ combined a massive amount of knowledge to serve the global sheet metal fabrication industry. Prima Industrie brought to the table its expertise in 3D lasers, 2D lasers and its background as a pioneer of automation technology. Prima stands for Progress in Manufacturing Automation. Finn Power’s expertise was in punching and shearing technologies, and in creating flexible automation systems, such as the Night Train FMS for material storage, with intelligent cassette management for real-time monitoring.

“It was a perfect match where you had multiple technical competencies, but not much overlap,” said Kyle Plass, regional sales manager, Prima Power North America, Inc., Arlington Heights, Ill. Prima Industrie S.p.A.’s headquarters is located in Torino, Italy; Finn Power Oy is located in Seinäjoki, Finland.

Based on outward perspectives, Finnish and Italian cultures can be perceived as being polar opposites but the companies found a way to come together and thrive, approaching the sheet metal fabrication market in a “pretty dominant way,” Plass said.

Prima Power’s range of technologies is one of the widest in the industry: 2D and 3D laser machines for cutting, welding and drilling, punching machines, combined punch-laser and punch-shear systems, press brakes, panel benders, robotic bending cells and flexible manufacturing systems. The company also offers customers a full software ecosystem. Prima Power is the brand for sheet metal manufacturing of Prima Industrie, a group comprised of 1,900 people, 15,000 installations, seven plants, and annual revenues of more than 500 million euros.

With its resources and tools, Prima Power offers a one-stop shop to its customers, acting as an integrator, automation provider and a reliable machine tool provider. The automation systems can be used on its range of machines, from entry level to the highest level of machines.

Plass said Prima Power is a proven and tried and true laser cutting system supplier.  In regard to 2D lasers, Prima Industrie was a pioneer in photonics in the Italian marketplace, one of the first companies to effectively and accurately transition from CO2 to fiber lasers. The newest addition to the company’s 2D laser technology portfolio is the Platino Linear. The machine’s Adaptive Cut feature adjusts focus and beam diameter, which ensures optimal cutting quality across various metal types and thicknesses. Its compact design occupies 22% less space than others in its category, and its maintenance-free linear drive system contributes to reduced downtime. The Platino Linear also features Smart Cut and Gas Mixer Cut to optimize operations, reducing cycle times by up to 30%, while enhancing cutting quality. The ECO-TOUCH Cut feature reduces gas consumption by up to 40%, which contributes to sustainability.

Regarding 3D laser cutting systems, many of Prima Power’s customers are automotive OEMs and Tier I and II automotive suppliers. These companies are focused on speeds and feeds, depending on the fastest and most reliable machines to complete their production. The company’s line of Laser Next machines (1530-2130) are located in nearly every automotive OEM operation. Plass said the original concepts for the machines thrived in Italian automotive clusters, with companies such as Fiat and Ferrari.

Prima Power’s line of bending machines is driven by servo-electric drives, requiring no hydraulic oils and featuring fewer issues with coolants. Maintenance costs are more straightforward, Plass added.

When you are looking at bending capabilities, every single job shop has a press brake or a panel bender to complete assembled components, Plass said.

“What people love about the benders is that they are servo electric,” he said. “So, not only is it a controlled smooth bend but the energy consumption is a lot lower.” According to company data, this concept is branded Green Means, a pragmatic approach to sustainability. Bending technology touts profitability by consuming 50% less energy than industry average hydraulic brakes, high accuracy and repeatability reduces waste, and lastly, the absence of thermal influence of hydraulic oils and fewer complex critical comments enable meaningful shop level reliability.

Prima Power’s eP Genius 1030 electric press brake utilizes a servo-electric drive system that delivers high accuracy and repeatability, along with a user-friendly interface for easy programming and operation. In addition to reducing power consumption, its compact footprint optimizes the use of floor space. A flexible tooling system allows for quick setups and supports diverse applications.

Prima Power’s line of panel benders offer fabricators flexibility thanks to the multiple configurations and sizes even regarding small production batches and complex bending profiles. The BCe Smart+ is a new semi-automatic panel bender that is designed to allow a large space for side loading of the workpiece by the operator on the table, as in the BCe Smart 2220. The panel bender features a new manipulator with direct-drive servomotors.

Prima Power’s BCe Smart 2200 panel bending solution automates the bending process for increased productivity, resulting in high precision and repeatability for consistent quality, along with flexible production capabilities suitable for small to medium batch sizes.

Plass shared that while companies from emerging economies are building press brakes, few panel benders have come out of these new spaces to compete. “You can’t copy that,” he said. “It’s the software and the hardware mixed together in such a strong harmony for that to be such an advanced product.”

Fabricators tend to be a bit surprised when they see not only how efficient and fast panel benders are, but that they are so flexible and can make multiple parts because there are no tool changes. “The manipulators are automating the process,” Plass said. “I think that is the evolution of where manufacturing is going; away from manual press brakes and more towards panel benders and brakes that are automated.”

Wide Range of Technologies

Prima Power also manufactures a range of punching, shearing and combination machines, including Shear Genius EVO and Shear Brilliance. The machines offer two punch turret construction alternatives, 16 stations and 20 stations. “What I think customers like the best about that is the flexibility to not have to do tool changes,” Plass said. “Simple as that.” The large and dynamic tooling capacity allows operators to plan shift runs and large batches without adjustments.

Manufacturers producing grills, venting, HVAC systems, electrical boxes and other products that require louvers, tapping, and specialty tooling, in particular benefit from Prima Power’s turret layouts. “Those capabilities are traditional but the ability to have that all in one turret is not necessarily traditional,” Plass pointed out.

Prima Power’s punch and shearing combination machines trace their history to Finn Power’s development of the Shear Genius in the 1980s. When Finn Power founder Jorma Lillbacka witnessed shearing and punching machines working side by side at a trade show, he wanted the R&D team to combine two machines into one machine, a right angle shear and a punch machine, by ensuring the manipulators worked correctly to enable both processes. The flexibility of the machine allows metalworkers to blank during operations, as opposed to blanking by part, which is important to shops making anything rectangular.

The Shear Genius EVO transforms square parts and panels to final products by combining additional work stages (loading, punching, forming, threading, marking, shearing and part sorting). It can be easily connected to automation systems in order to boost efficiencies in the material and part flow.

Prima Power’s product line also includes modular, flexible manufacturing solutions such as the Night Train FMS storage solution, one of the company’s flagship products. The idea behind the Night Train’s name was based on non-stop night trains — much like the train doesn’t stop at night, why should your production when you can run 24/7? The Night Train FMS offers automated material handling resulting in finished parts that are ready to go in the morning. Its low-profile crane and shelf structure offer storage capacity with a smaller footprint by combining individual manufacturing stages into a single process.

One of the most popular Prima Power flexible manufacturing systems is the PSBB line: punch, shear, buffer and bend capabilities all in one flexible manufacturing line. At the heart of the system is the Shear Genius EVO.

Another product line centers on the software ecosystem. Prima Power’s software was created in house and allows operators to program mid-job. Plass said the open format enables customers to view their data to plan, program, run, and control, and have full visibility of their entire operations.

“The best part of our software is you can drop in a 3D model or a DXF or CAD file and it will basically build it for you,” Plass said. The software ecosystem provides insights into efficient machine management and production. For one Canadian cabinet maker, the team knows its production flow down to the seconds. Utilizing a PSBB line, it will take 44 seconds to cut and punch, 22 seconds to go to the buffering section, and 45 seconds to bend. Making sure each transition to the next process is seamless and fast for contract jobs. The company runs the machine at 72% speed so it perfectly matches the full cycle all the way down to packaging the end product to ship.

This manufacturer successfully moved its production operations back to Canada and plans to grow production utilizing the PSBB format for quick expansion into the United States market. This customer is a prime example of mastering the full potential of the Prima technology to enhance the output in a lean environment.

Building Trust to Create Lasting Relationships

To further increase market share, Prima Power is beefing up customer service efforts in the U.S. and North American marketplace, increasing personnel at its Chicago-area technology facility to support a stronger presence. Directed by Rob Stiels, the manager of the Technology and Training Center, the company is underway with additional training for both employees and customers to better support its product lines.

At the global level of operations, Prima Power continues to invest in its capacity in order to fulfill machine orders. Within the last five years, the company has conducted expansions to its laser-cutting machinery factory in Turino, Italy; and finished moving its Finnish operations to a new Seinäjoki, Finland factory. Each of these flagship factories have technology centers where potential customers can experience custom equipment solutions including the Night Train and PSBB lines.

In Seinäjoki, the company made significant investments in new automated production technology, including the installation of a Night Train FMS automated storage system, which significantly increased the factory’s production capacity and material flow efficiency within the existing facility.

Prima Power is also underway with an expansion to its bending factory in Cologna Veneta, Italy. The bending factory was operating at capacity a couple of years ago, and the company has strategically invested in expanding operations to make more machines, which includes increasing R&D.

Plass said Prima Power is prepared for the future, not only in regard to production of machinery, but also for what’s next in customer relations. When it comes to interacting with customers and potential customers, the Prima Power team takes a consultative approach. “I would say what separates us is we don’t necessarily pitch you like, ‘this is a great machine, you need this machine,’” Plass said. “It’s ‘what do you build, what do you make, and what are your bottlenecks?’”

Once a metal fabricator explains their products and describes how they manufacture the products, they start to see the Prima Power team is more applications based than sales based. “At our core, we believe that automation is a huge solution to gaining productivity,” Plass said. “The benefits are clear. It’s about how well you can integrate that into your actual business.”

The range offering allows for manual operations, semi-automated, and fully automated processing of parts. It is a menu of options and efficiencies that can be merged into a manufacturer’s current processes. Prima Power equipment is completely modular. All automation technology is applicable to all equipment families and sizes. This format can enable standalone machinery to grow into automated cells or fully automated lines by adding material handling, storage, buffering, and transitioning from one process to the next, leveling up processes at the manufacturer’s pace and timeline.

For example, one could implement a stand-alone laser. After it has boosted blanking and collected its ROI, the shop may want to automate the feeding of the material with material handling storage solutions. The automated solution is already geared towards the laser in place, resulting in building simple modular solutions to your needs and production cycles.

The future presents endless possibilities in the manufacturing sector. Plass pointed out that while complex automation functions such as AI are still years to come, at the end of the day, an operator will be required to oversee programs, processes and how parts move through the processes.

The sheet metal fabrication industry has not slowed down and will not slow down, believes Prima Power, thanks in part to the need for data center infrastructure, appliances, yellow goods and those using fabrication as part of their supply chain. “The future is bright,” Plass said. “You have to find your niche, and when you are in your niche you are constantly landing and expanding new business because your machine tools give you the flexibility to build whatever you would like to build for the market you serve.”

www.primapower.com