SMS orders large SORALUCE automated production line

After 15 months of engineering, cutting tests and negotiations, SORALUCE has achieved one of the biggest orders of its history from SMS Meer, consisting of a large automated production line. SMS is a German company with a total annual turnover of EUR 1.2 billion and 2,400 employees. SMS Meer is a division of the SMS group, world market leader in plant and machine engineering for the industrial processing of steel, aluminium and non-ferrous metals. Through organic growth and acquisitions of other leading companies, SMS Meer has become the leading full-line provider in the field of metal forming. The contract consists of an automatic production line composed of 4 SORALUCE milling-boring centres which will be located in the Mönchengladbach plant. Additionally, two milling-boring machines will be installed in the same plant, one of them for operator training. Another two SORALUCE machines will be installed in the Aachen plant, a bed type milling centre and a multitasking F-MT machine for milling/turning large size components in the same machine in the same setup. The challenge of the project is based on integrating the SORALUCE milling-boring machines into a flexible machining cell integrating both an automatic parts feeder and a centralized tool management system. The key for the success of the project has been the high dynamics of the machines, a changeable head configuration that allows more than 96% availability and local service and technical support from Bimatec-Soraluce.