Case study
Baggio & De Sordi: just-in-time cutting with automation
Story courtesy of G. Giannangeli/Applicazioni Laser
Automation is increasingly essential for effective and efficient sheet metal laser cutting: it guarantees productivity and full flexibility in managing everyday activities, marked by small and medium batches. Aware of this, Baggio & De Sordi, an outfitter for commercial and special vehicles, chose to invest in a highly automated L5 Salvagnini laser system used almost exclusively for cutting with compressed air.
Just-in-time cutting with automation
Highlights
- Baggio & De Sordi
Baggio & De Sordi Srl from Giavera del Montello (Treviso) fits out special and commercial vehicles, studying and creating ideal solutions for every need, supplying all the components, starting from the ‘naked’ or standard vehicles. Most of Baggio & De Sordi’s turnover is domestic, and is recording considerable growth, confirming the product quality and the company’s leading position in the sector. As regards the production sites, the production is concentrated at the main headquarter. Two other sites are involved in the logistics, for the products under delivery and a very special service, after-sales support and extraordinary maintenance. - The context
Innovation is a must for Baggio & De Sordi. The pioneering equipment and machinery allow the company to supply high-quality products with the best value for money. Among the suppliers of machine tools, the company has a long-standing special relationship with Salvagnini, a highly reputed manufacturer due to its considerable experience in the flexible sheet metal working industry. At Baggio & De Sordi, the first panel bender was put into operation years ago, and was later integrated with others to cope with increased orders. - The project
More recently, due to the need to reduce the size of the warehouse for just-in-time production, a fiber laser cutting machine with numerous accessories was installed. This is the Salvagnini L5 with 4kW head and 9-tray store-tower. The L5 system is fed by an LTWS store-tower with automatic loading-unloading device: the system ensures that different materials and thicknesses are available for just-in-time jobs, reducing sheet metal waiting times and dependence on operators. Cutting is done almost exclusively with compressed air, using the ACUT option that cuts thicknesses up to 20 mm. The STREAMLASER software for cutting programs is particularly interesting, as it improves material efficiency and reduces costs and the NEXUS software for programming MCU automatic sorting devices that assures the full reactivity of the sorting automation. The solutions to increase the flexibility of the L5 system installed at Baggio & De Sordi also include ANC, the automatic nozzle changer. AVS turns laser cutting into a downstream workstation following punching jobs, while NVS checks the centering of the laser beam and adopts machine learning algorithms to monitor the nozzle state, in order to reduce waste. - The outcome
"The cutting head with 4kW source is very high-performing on our thin sheet metal. We chose this machine because it assured the best responses to our needs, and that was the case: the fact of being able to reduce throughput times has allowed us to halve our warehouse, and space has a cost too. We wanted a large unloading area because our orders consist mainly of hundreds of sheet metal parts; but we also needed to be able to divide the cut material by type, job, order and even by batch, depending on the case. Today we have the flexibility to do this. The machine often runs unmanned at night and during holidays”, explains Fabrizio e Federico De Sordi, respectively CEO and Technical Director.
