Nuova Stame belongs to a group of companies controlled by a holding whose shareholders are all engaged in various roles within companies. Founded in 1970 thanks to the entrepreneurial and professional skills of a group of technicians specialised in the design and manufacture of tooling for cold sheet metal forming, today the company carries out its business at its site in Sirtori (LC), on a total area of ??44 thousand square meters, of which 16 thousand are covered. Here reliability, quality and research into innovative technical solutions are the key factors in obtaining continual positive feedback from the market.
“A business”, specifies Natale Crippa, shareholder and owner of the company, as well as large die manufacturing manager, “that involves designing and manufacturing a wide range of dies, specially designed and developed to meet the needs of customers mainly in the automotive sector, with a high degree of specialisation in silencers and exhausts, but also in the agricultural and white goods sectors”.
Drawing, trimming, cutting, bending and forming dies, as well as compound, progressive and transfer dies for manufacturing a multitude of car components: from silencers, as already highlighted, to complete side panels and bonnets. “Actually”, adds Crippa, “today, Nuova Stame is able to make any sheet metal part of a vehicle body”. Dies of every size and complexity, machined using a vast and various fleet of machines, including Soraluce F series milling centres.
Flexibility and productivity in synergy
“In the Sirtori plant”, Crippa emphasises, “there are three Soraluce F series centres, while there are another four installations in the production units of some of our subsidiaries: two machines are located in Omp in Perego (LC), one is in Susta Teramo and one is in Romania, at the headquarters of Top Technology”.
We are talking about travelling column milling centres with automatic head and tool magazine changers. They are ergonomic and feature a high production capacity, in line with the needs of machining even the largest dies. The travelling column solution adopted is ideal for machining dies and patterns vertically with the help of brackets, as this eliminates the problems of chip evacuation typical of portal milling machines. The new compact monolithic column thereby prevents deformation, while ensuring rigidity and the utmost accuracy. The final result is a highly ergonomic work area, where loading-unloading and adjustments can be carried out with ease.
“The F series”, adds Dr. Giancarlo Alducci, General Manager of the Italian branch of Soraluce, “identifies a range of machines that not only offer high degree of intrinsic flexibility, but also absolute precision in the finish of machined workpieces. The head is driven by a high-torque direct motor, giving excellent performance and high efficiency”.
They are made with a cast iron structure, linear recirculating roller guides, and damping shoes on the vertical axes and ram. They can be supplied with an X axis that has a longitudinal stroke from a minimum of 3000 mm up to a maximum of 20,000 mm, Y axis in sizes of 2200 , 2600 and 3200 mm, and the Z axis can be chosen from 1300 and 1500 mm versions. The spindle has a power of 46 kW, while the operating speed of the automatic power head can be 4000, 5000, 6000 or 7000 rpm, as required. Specifically, the machines in Nuova Stame were chosen with X-axis longitudinal strokes of 8000 mm and 12,000 mm.
From the evolution of materials to process innovation
Reliability, flexibility and production capacity are the qualities of Soraluce machining centres that Nuova Stame technicians most appreciate. “With the shorter operating times that we have currently”, concludes Crippa “it becomes essential to be able to count on machines that can offer high performance, processing quality and above all reliability. Special features that must also respond to the constant technological evolution of materials that makes the product development cycle delicate. Similarly, quality repeatability becomes important, in order to avoid problems when closing and testing the die”. Dies that, as already highlighted, are not only complex, but also large, reaching and exceeding even 4500 x 2500 mm in length.
“Our best response”, concludes Natale Crippa, “to meet the increasingly demanding needs of the market, is reflected in our utmost attention to technological evolution and process innovation. With the added value of having full control over the entire production process, including induction hardening heat treatment. In other words, the greatest time reduction to improve competitiveness”.
Technology and innovation at the service of the die maker
Soraluce Italia was founded in 2001, and distributes and installs milling machines, boring machines and vertical turning centres of the well-known Basco brand, a member of the Danobat Group, the machine tool division of Mondragon Corporation, one of the leading industrial holding companies in Europe. Coordinated by the General Manager Dr. Giancarlo Alducci, the Italian branch operates throughout the country through a group of highly specialised technicians that take care of technical assistance and technological support for its customers. The broad and diverse range of machine tools is available in many configurations, including small, medium and large boring-milling machines (with up to 64,000 mm longitudinal stroke, vertical strokes of up to 8,000 mm and transverse strokes of up to 2,900 mm) as well as multitasking vertical turning centres that can reach turning diameters of up to 10,000 mm. High-performance, reliable machines, which have also been developed according to the modern concept of “Eco-design”, with great focus on environmental impact, thanks to specific studies and targeted measures that reduce energy consumption during use and maintenance, as well as reducing the need for cutting fluids, coolants, raw materials and paints.
A holding with 900 employees and a turnover of over 250 million Euro
There are 15 companies that are members of the Stame holding, a company that today employs about 1000 employees, most of whom work in the Lecco area (150 of them are employed at the Nuova Stame headquarters in Sirtori), as well as in central Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and Germany. The companies work in various sectors: sheet metal cold forming, die-casting, plastic processing and heat treatment. We are talking about a group that was founded when the managers of Stame, a company makes dies for sheet metal forming, decided to involve some of their most qualified and reliable employees, to take over the company shares.
It was then that the initial New Stame team was formed, from which it gradually developed over time into what is now a holding in which the shareholders are all engaged in various roles within the companies. In fact, its growth is based on the same criterion of involving the most capable employees in company share ownership. A business that serves customers of primary importance in the automotive bodywork, agricultural machinery, white goods, motorcycle and gardening sectors, with an export share of approximately 65% ??(mostly Europe, South Africa, India, Brazil, Iran, China, United States). Behind the positive market results lies the ability of all the group companies to distinguish themselves, not only for innovative technical solutions and quality guaranteed by strict final product checks, but also for high flexibility, promptness and reliability in their customer relations.
