Each plant is conceived to be unique and to meet specific sector requirements: in compliance with this clear paradigm, sacma makes available its experience gained in over 60 years of activity in the sector of sheet metal coil processing plants.
Experience, quality, innovation and reliability represent the fundamental principles that merge together in Sacma. With a single common denominator, the passion for this enterprise, transmitted from father to son for a good three generations. Sergio Colombo, who has managed the company since the late Fifties, was the proponent of the productive philosophy that has made the business famous worldwide. To summarize and to take the updated picture of an entrepreneurial reality able to satisfy complex requirements in the sheet metal working sector, we met the managing director in charge Patrick Colombo (in the photo), more and more motivated to follow the footsteps of his predecessor, but with innovative ideas both in the relationship with customers and in the team motivation, with a single final target: the full customer satisfaction. «Each plant is devised in collaboration with customers – specifies Colombo – to be unique and to meet the precise specifications of the sector for which it is intended. And just to meet this need at best, in 2012 we started a process of internal transformation, aimed at reorganizing our reality according to an even more managerial character. Highly committed to the optimization of the processes that rule the whole product development cycle». Starting from the integration into our organization of a new technical electronic office, to be able to manage the operation logics of the plants developed in even more specialized manner as regards to single needs. This results also, as natural evolution, in the partnership relationship established with Siemens. «In this case – underlines Colombo – the target is to be able to supply, in case of need, a univocal offer of components, controls, drives and motors, with the advantage of relying on a great internal rationalization». It is also worth signalling the presence of a new operational technical mechanical office entrusted with all after sale service cases and the development of the new products released, in their turn, by the technical research and development office (it too recently introduced). A transformation process that has led also to the deep upgrading of the machine fleet and to a lead-time more than halved in comparison with previous standard waiting times. «The strong managerial organization imposed– states Colombo – today allows us to supply our plants in about 5-6 months from the order, against the former 12-14».
Slitting and cut-to-length lines
The array of designed and developed plants is wide and varied and ranges from slitting to cut-to-length lines, from levelling to binding and coil-to-coil lines. In particular, slitting and cut-to-length lines represent the Sacma plant typology most diffused in the world, with over 450 installations synonym of reliability and experience. A know-how and knowledge heritage that allows designing and implementing lines with any sophistication level, from the simplest to the most innovative and complex one, to satisfy the specific requirements of all production realities. Among the available versions, that’s to say Light Gauge, Medium Gauge and Heavy Gauge, which differ depending on the required cut performances. They are high-productivity machines, with cutting speeds ranging from 150 to 500 m/min according to the model and to the material to be processed. Reliable and productive, cut-to-length lines express instead their best in the two main components of the line: the levelling machine and the flying or rotary shears. «Two cornerstones and absolutely key elements in the plant operation – adds Colombo – and especially distinguishing of the high quality; levelling machines are fully designed and manufactured by Sacma and also sold as stand alone machines. They are available 4 and 6 level levelling machines, different roll diameters allow machining effectively any thickness included in the range from 0.3 to 20 mm, for coil widths from 1,000 to 2,150 mm». Also in this case three are the base available versions (Light Gauge, Medium Gauge and Heavy Gauge) depending on the cutting performances requested in terms of speeds and especially of thicknesses to be processed. For few years have been available also levellers conceived to process high-strength material for the automotive industry.
From binding to coil-to-coil
Binding lines do not constitute a business core for Sacma but the natural completion of slitting and cut-to-length lines, also in this case conceived, developed and implemented according to customers’ specific needs and consistently with the productive characteristics and the technical-performance peculiarities of the slitters or of the cut to length line preceding them. The binding of the cut sheets or of the sheet metals is not in fact a trivial phase of the productive cycle, since it must not constitute a bottleneck downstream the cutting process. It must be therefore balanced with the line productivity and it must not affect the quality, also aesthetical, of the cut material. «There is however another aspect that we should underline – further states Colombo – for which the experience gained on the field by our technical offices is important and fundamental. I’m referring to the study and the development of the lay-out and of the line configuration that typically must come to terms with the scarcity of space, since the productive cutting phase is privileged for obvious reasons. An added value that today increasingly represents a discriminating factor of competitiveness». Concerning coil binding lines, Sacma plants can process strips with maximum 7-t weight, with external diameters from 500 to 2000 mm of any material typology, including the nonmagnetic one. For the binding of cut sheet stacks, the proposal includes also non-stop lines, with pallet capacity from 300 to 16,000 mm of length, with mechanical, pneumatic and/or magnetic systems. Also coil-to-coil lines constitute a completion of Sacma product range. They are characterized by simple standard configuration but anyway assuring reliability and utmost interfacing with the technological processes with which they are integrated, like satin finish, polishing or simple surface control. It is for this reason that they are prearranged for various control systems. Those lines can process coils of material up to 40 t, from 0.3 to 20 mm of thickness and variable width from 1,000 to 2,050 mm.
All projects focused on customers
Further value to the plants manufactured by Sacma is also given by designers’ integration of increasingly more electronics and less mechanics. «This means higher performances – adds Colombo – with improvements concerning the aspect of both downtime and set-up time management. With the addition of the strong upgrading of hydraulic plants, paying particular attention to ecologic aspects, too». The attention to customers finally involves an aspect not always considered, that’s to say the necessary foundations to install plants. «Also from this point of view – ends Colombo – our technicians can propose solutions drastically reducing costs for final customers. This means to give further added value and to enhance the competitiveness as to the investment made in technology. Details, these ones, of an almost analytical management of our product development process but absolutely necessary to propose the market concrete solutions focused on customers and their needs».
The company at a glance
Belonging to the group of the most authoritative players of the machine tool industry, so called “made by Italians”, Sacma today is synonymous of innovative technology and reliability in the sector of sheet metal coil processing plants. With over 450 installations in the world in manifold sectors, it can boast a heritage of enviable technological experiences and competences to be shared with end users for the development of plants studied to satisfy specific requirements and with tailor-made solutions. Its history starts in the far off 1948, in Vicenza, when the company makes the first steps in the production of sheet metal cutting machines. But the rate becomes steady and fast, leading Sacma first to Milan and then to the definitive head office at Crosio della Valle, in the outskirts of Varese, where it is established in 1960. Transfers and changes, for a reality always in motion and expansion and that today can develop a constantly rising yearly turnover, exceeding 6 million Euros (with the target of tripling it within the next two years), thanks to the contribution of about seventy employees, daily called to give a strong boost to the product innovation, in national and international field.
