In the cutting lines department there are four numerical control lines, assembled and updated on site. The installation and assembly operations were performed by local external technicians, experts in industrial electronics and applied mechanics for machinery.

The above-mentioned technicians have an on going relationship with the company: they schedule and direct the inspection and maintenance operations; they also plan the updating operations in collaboration with the internal staff.

This organisation has the objective of optimising all aspects linked to flexibility such as the ability to quickly gear the technical characteristics of our cutting lines to any eventual new demands of the client.

The numerically controlled cutting lines have a high level of automation:
• Automatic change of drilled sheets
• Automatic change of out of thickness sheets
• Classification and counting of sheets in order to manage packaging materials.

Two of the four cutting lines are equipped with a rotary shear system for lateral trimming, while the other two are pre-set to be equipped for scroll cutting with adequate tolerance.

The necessity of optimising output to the various demands and the updating operations have defined a group of lines with differentiated cuts: each line has fixed characteristics and capacity, therefore the following technical characteristics are only intended as an approximation of the complete range.

Maximum coil weight: 12-13 tons
Maximum coil diameter: 1600 mm
Maximum coil width: 1200 mm
Thickness limits: 0.14/0.50 mm
Cut: min. 465 mm, max. 1200mm
Accuracy of cut: 2/10 mm
Maximum speed: approx. 100mt/min

On each line a pinhole marker and an out of thickness and/or double sheet marker (thickness gauge) have been installed.

Furthermore the cutting line operators are in possession of the following tools in order to carry out pre-set quality control inspections:

• manual micrometer
• hardometer (to measure hardness Rockwell)
• a bench for measuring transversal and longitudinal bending
• a device for checking waviness
• a slider gauge for measuring the scroll

The cutting line department produces 15,000 sheets an hour, which corresponds to around 300,000 sheets a day. The lines are updated in accordance with development programmes designed to optimise production flexibility.

The coil warehouse for the cutting lines has a capacity of around 12,000 tons and is suited to storing coils either horizontally or vertically. To move the coils, a bridge crane with a maximum capacity of 15 tons is used.

The coils cut on the cutting lines are machined after passing an inspection in the coil receiving department where the correspondence between the actual specifications of the material, those shown on the accompanying documentation and those specified on the production order (width, thickness, hardness) are checked.

The circular blade shearing department is equipped with two ordinary shears and a double shear (capable of trimming two sizes in one pass) which can be used both for the trimming of sheets and/or the removal of patterned edges and for cutting in bands.

The total production of the department is about 40,000 sheets a day.