act/cut, the core center of oxy-cutting for Manni Sipre

Manni Sipre, one of the leading Italian actors in the trade and cutting of thick sheets has been using Alma software since May 2005 to program around ten oxy-cutting and plasma-cutting machines, among which one equipped with a programmable bevel. Alma Italia, Alma’s subsidiary based in Turin, played a key role in adapting the software to the specific needs of Manni Sipre by taking into account the company’s know-how.

A leader of the Italian market

Gruppo Manni HP is the leader of the Italian market of prefabricated steel elements manufactured for the sectors of construction and mechanics but also the sector of insulating metal panels.Created from the merger in 2004 between Manni Siderurgica SpA, Sipre SpA and Lancini SpA, Manni Sipre is the group’s sheet-metal division. It provides sheets for the building of metallic structures, boiler making, shipbuilding or mechanical construction and in its Mozzecane plant near Verona, offers a complete service of sub-contracting cutting and pre-machining: oxyfuel cutting, plasma cutting, drilling, marking, chamfering, shot blasting.

Steel Projects, editor of an integrated computing system for metal construction took part ten years ago in the computerization of customer order management and stock management at Sipre. Its WinSTEEL software is now integrated in the information system of the company and represents a key link between business management and material management upstream, and long and flat product manufacturing downstream. Long-established partner of Alma, Steel Projects favored the introduction of act/cut at Manni Sipre; the company now takes advantage of an integrated IT solution, from ordering to manufacturing in the workshop.

A software to program all kinds of machines

Since May 2005, when act/cut was commissioned at Manni Sipre, Alma software has become the key to programming in Mozzecane. act/cut pilots the eight oxyfuel cutting and plasma-cutting machines, some of which are equipped with plasma or drilling marking systems, and the latest plasma-cutting machine Soitaab HPR260 with programmable bevel in X,Y,K. Altogether, eight act/cut software licenses are used, some of which specifically by the sellers to help draw up quotations and visualize the sheet and off-cut stocks.

Alma Italia helped to parameter or customize software at several levels, enabling the users to save a lot of time while guaranteeing perfect cutting quality.

A customized solution for oxycutting

We know how important know-how is in the oxycutting job and how necessary it is for the programming software to take this expertise into account. Used for 25 years by the largest European oxycutting specialists, Alma software provides unbeatable experience in this field and works at delivering automated solutions that contribute to reducing programming times, enhancing machine time cycles and increasing material optimization.

So, Alma Italia helped to parameter or customize software at several levels:

parametering of special lead-ins in the shape of a hook and hammer to avoid thermal deformations,
specific sequencing of operations to automatically execute drilling at the cutting lead-out point of the previous part, to avoid long and useless drilling in thick portions,
special macros for cutting circles and rectangles in multi-flame,
nesting combining common cut and multi-flame cutting,
automatic marking of an identification code on the parts via micro-percussion.

It is without any doubt the integration of act/cut into the production management system that allowed the largest time savings during the preparation phase.

A significant time saving

All these functions enable the users to save a lot of time while guaranteeing perfect cutting quality. The automatic nesting systematically used for plasma cutting is another source of time saving for programmers who used to work in manual mode with the previous software. Moreover, the results obtained are excellent and contribute to real material savings. But it is without any doubt the integration of act/cut into the production management system (via Steel Projects’ WinSTEEL software) that allowed the largest time savings during the preparation phase, while avoiding error risks inherent to the manual re-entering of startup orders. The flexibility of the software, the ease to switch from one machine to another, the unification of programs and programming methods is also very much appreciated by users.

www.mannisiderurgica.it