Manuel Nercide: “With the miniaturization of equipment, ensuring precision becomes an increasingly important factor, whatever the application may be. However, other requirements must be taken into consideration, such as the surface finishes obtained and the repeatability of the manufacturing process over time.” One of the company’s strengths is that the parts it produces are renowned for their reliability, precision and consistency. This is the result of the balance between skilled human resources and the production solution equipment.

MPS: a group offering a broad range of solutions adapted to different markets

Manuel Nercide: “The arrival of the Bumotec machining center coincides with the development of our milling process requirements, which is something we have been doing in-house since 2016. The aim of this is to achieve a certain level of independence when it comes to suppliers, by being able to subcontract within the group’s own entities.”

Monitoring the project and the training of operators are fundamental factors

Milling engineer Lucas Vorpe went to Starrag in Vuadens to complete training on the Bumotec s191H. “The machine interface is so intuitive that I was able to program my first workpiece directly.” The “test” component used to help MPS choose the selected machine supplier was a part used in the manufacture of telescopes. It is designed to be fitted on an actuator. The fiber optic is attached to this part located at the end of the assembled system, and allows it to be oriented. Depending on the size of the parabola, every telescope which scans the galaxy comprises between 200 and 1.000 actuators.

Head of production, Michael Bazzan: “The target cycle time for the part was 30 minutes; the Bumotec s191H created it in almost a third of this time: twelve minutes.” Michael Bazzan shared the team’s excitement for the Bumotec s191H machining center with us. “The Bumotec s191H really stands out in the production workshop. With a modern design and contemporary colors, this latest addition has one feature which immediately united the machine operators: the user-friendly interface. Simple to use, with clear information, the controls are highly intuitive.” Producing from bar stock is also something very new for MPS. Thanks to the built-in bar loader, blanks no longer need to be prepared by machining their attachment systems prior to production.

A team motivated by its choice of new production solutions

Michael Bazzan: “Our productivity has increased now our production process no longer involves clamping workpiece after workpiece for machining, then using multiple fixtures to create the finishes. All the operations are performed in turn using the same clamping set-up, without any interruption.”

Fabio Mazzù, head of bar turning, milling and EDM, added “We can also leave production running overnight without supervision thanks to the function which manages the sister tools in the 60-position magazine.” With this function, if a tool breaks during production, it is replaced with an identical tool stored in the magazine. There is no need to stop production and the tools are tested.

In the medical industry, the traceability of components and their documentation are very widely referenced, particularly when it comes to implants of any kind. The procedures are usually quite long and costly. Limiting the number of operations performed on different complementary production units, and therefore using a single fixture for machining, also allows these procedures to be shortened and simplified and their costs reduced. Michael Bazzan gave a concrete example of the simplification of the work flows: “With a component created on three complementary production units, we have to prepare three different fixtures and three set-up files, along with three procedures and three tasklist operations, whereas during production with the Bumotec s191H, one single set-up file has to be prepared with a single file of tasklist operations. Obviously these are much larger, but they are simpler to manage as we have just the one document to monitor.”

For future projects with the Bumotec s191H, the main materials to be machined will be titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, and the carbon-filled peek mentioned previously, plus of course, ceramic if a demand for this arises. Fabio Mazzù: “The power of the spindle which rotates at 40,000 rpm brings benefits both in terms of surface finish quality and cycle time, something which our current inventory of machines cannot provide as their spindle speeds are limited to 20,000 rpm.”