TTEngineering will see a double appointment at international fairs this year: after EuroBlech in Hanover, it will be the turn of FABTECH Atlanta, where national and international exhibitors from the welding, consumer goods, metallurgy, etc. sectors will meet (for more information visit https://www.fabtechexpo.com/).
Come and visit us at the Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, from November, 08th till 10th, 2022 – Hall C, stand C11065!
After 2 years of forced stop due to the Covid-19 pandemic, TTEngineering finally returns to the limelight with the participation in the EuroBlech in Hanover, the number 1 exhibition in the world for sheet metal working companies.
Come and visit us at the Hannover Exhibition Grounds, Germany, from 25th till 28th October 2022 – Hall 11, stand E62!
Dear Partner,
As it is well known, the international raw materials markets are seriously suffering from the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Every day we are observing a series of side effects, such as consistent price increase in supplies and postponement of delivery times; in the worst case we are even unable to get any forecast in terms of products prices, availabilities and delivery times.
We are daily committed in following the supply trends for materials and components, so that our stock warehouse can cope with the huge increase in demand and enable us to meet orders deadlines.
By the way, unfortunately we cannot rule out any possible additional shift in standard delivery times of both current and future orders.
We, for our part, are taking personal care of the issue, doing our best to limit as much as possible any potential inconvenience caused by this situation, which is certainly not attributable to our company.
We shall see to it that postponements in delivery times for every pending order are always and promptly reported to you: we hope this approach of strong cooperation would help us all through these tough times.
Our company is grateful for your precious partnership and understanding.
TTEngineering s.r.l.
After carefully following the evolution of the anti-Covid travel regulations between Italy and the US, it is with great regret that we were forced to cancel our participation in FABTECH 2021: unfortunately, the possibility to enter the US is still suspended for travellers coming from the Schengen Area, except for activities of national interest; therefore, business trips and trade fair participation are still impossible.
However, the appointment has only been postponed: TTEngineering awaits you at Fabtech 2022 in Atlanta!
TTEngineering is glad to announce that will be exhibiting in Chicago at FABTECH 2021, North America’s largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event.
Come and visit us at booth A3554, South building “3D/Additive manufacturing, forming and fabricating”.
September 13-16, 2021 at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois: save the date!
The whole world knows TTEngineering as sheet metal working machines constructor for pipe production, but that’s not all: thanks to its primeval experience in the pharmaceutical industry, over the years the company has been able to develop and implement great abilities in the broader sphere of industrial automation.
Stretching from medical to cosmetics industry and again from the electrical to the mechanical one, TTEngineering has created a series of highly customized, automated plants, at times cleverly integrated with anthropomorphic robots, vibrating screens and other brilliant solutions to increase their performance, granting at the same time high efficiency in full compliance with the applicable regulations (to discover more browse the section INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION SYSTEMS).
Today TTEngineering wants to pay tribute to its most successful achievements of the field with a video that gathers some of its best feats: watch the VIDEO!
Despite the serious international situation in terms of both health and economics, year 2020 has turned out to be a “special” year anyway for TTEngineering, since it ends with the launch of a new product on the market: a completely renewed version of the traditional cutting machine, destined to stand-alone and manual applications only; fully preserving the same characteristics of precision and productivity, it stands out for its modern design and a remarkable advantage from the economic point of view (to discover more browse our page 3D PIPE CUTTING MACHINES or contact us directly to find out the available models).
As springboard TTE chose the November 2020 edition of Deformazione magazine: browse it on-line! http://pdf.publiteconline.it/rivista/index.php?id=235#book5/84
All machines and lines by TTEngineering are projected and realised in full compliance with the international safety standards, thus granting high automation levels in complete safety.
Among the typical safety devices of our machines we can list compact, high-performance light curtains with integrated safety functions, safety PLC with integrated safety functions, up to PL “e” category 4, state-of-the-art micro switches with RFID technology and integrated diagnostic, just to name a few.
TTE ultimate goal consists in granting a safe human-machine interface while keeping high performance levels; therefore, at the end of each installation our technicians always do an accurate and dedicated training to the machine’s future operators, thus enabling them to launch production in short times and in complete safety.
Considering the utmost importance of the present topic for both our staff and clients, we have decided to emphasise it in a dedicated, unique space on the October 2020 issue of Deformazione magazine.
Browse the online magazine: http://pdf.publiteconline.it/rivista/index.php?id=229#book5/92
The extensive know-how of TTEngineering finds its maximum expression in the automatic pipe production lines for sectors such as HVAC, chimney and automotive (to discover more, browse the section AUTOMATIC LINES).
TTE solutions are highly customizable, flexible and dynamic and guarantee the direct transformation of the raw material into finished product by means of a fully automatic and reliable process – that’s why we can define ourselves as “the origin of pipes”.
With the advertising page issued in September 2020 on Deformazione magazine TTEngineering wants to highlight once again the potential of its innovative solutions, which moreover fit the basic requirements granting full compliance with the INDUSTRY 4.0 specifications.
Browse the online magazine: http://pdf.publiteconline.it/rivista/index.php?id=220#book5/82
The CSU machine is the flagship of TTE’s technology: a single solution offering an extremely dynamic bending technique, thanks to the patented FlexFormer® system, followed by a high-precision laser welding process in a completely automatic mode (to discover more, browse the section AUTOMATIC LINES).
Thanks to the partnership with Publitec, TTEngineering decided to celebrate this technological success by publishing a dedicated, eye-catching advertising page on the May 2020 issue of Deformazione magazine.
Browse the online magazine: http://pdf.publiteconline.it/rivista/index.php?id=209#book5/104
For TTEngineering the year 2020 starts with a new, outstanding partnership with Publitec, a well-known player in the publishing world of technical press.
Considering the company’s application field, Deformazione was set as target magazine, since it deals with metal plastic deformation techniques and sheet metal working.
In February the first advertising page was released, marking an absolutely brand new start for TTE: thanks to its new-born marketing branch the company is ready to show the world its completely renewed look!
Browse the online magazine: http://pdf.publiteconline.it/rivista/index.php?id=190#book5/84
Halton Oy (Finland) installed an automatic line for pipes production manufactured by TTEngineering, which allowed the Finnish company to take a significant qualitative leap in terms of productivity. The plant replaces an old line and integrates a 1,500 W fibre laser calendering and welding machine switched with a 3D pipe cutting system, integrated in the plant. The resulting advantages are manifold.
Halton Oy is an important Finnish manufacturer of products for the air-conditioning, ventilation and airconveying industry; the company has been selling its products all over the world for 35 years, counting on a strategic trade policy focused on customer satisfaction with dedicated products and solutions, always considering technological innovation and flexibility as its trump cards. With this in mind the company has recently installed a fully automatic plant for pipes production manufactured by TTEngineering, replacing an old system based on the resistance welding technology and perfectly integrating an existing automatic machining unit.
Deeds, not words
TTEngineering’s Sales Director says: “The project originates from the customer’s idea to replace the old resistance welding pipe production line with a new and better performing one, based on sheet metal laser butt-welding technology”.
In comparison to its competitors the winning asset was certainly the “custom-cut solution” offered by the company from Como, which would allow the customer a considerably more favourable ROI. “That’s why we visited the customer even before starting with offers and layouts: we checked its needs and process modalities and only after that we proposed a solution that could meet the specifications required by the customer. Despite our offer far exceeded the customer’s budget (over 50%), we persuaded him with facts, since our solution would assure a remarkable increase of production efficiency and flexibility, as a direct consequence of reducing cycle time and machine setup time during item change, as well as eliminating intermediate processes and workings with the related equipment. Not to mention the reduction of warehouse stocks and raw materials handling costs, which results in energy saving. Moreover, our solution was largely preferred for its flexibility in terms of production range, assuring the possibility to manufacture not only round pipes but also rectangular and square sections, which are typical of the air-conditioning sector, adding an absolutely excellent aesthetic quality to the finished product”.
A qualitative leap
It would appear that so far Halton Oy had worked with a Jurassic machine; obviously, this is not true, but it is a fact that the purchase of this solution proposed by TTEngineering enabled the customer to reach and obtain what mentioned before without giving an inch of area compared to the previous system.
The other factor that finally persuaded Halton Oy was testing a similar system with their material directly at TTEngineering, watching how our programmers and mechanical engineers reconfigured anthropomorphic robots and equipments on existing plants in a short time, adjusting them perfectly according to their needs.
And if we also add a touch of Bel Paese to the reliability and technological innovation of TTE systems, maybe sipping a glass of fine wine in a typical restaurant on Lake Como, it’s a done deal!
The switched fibre laser welds and cuts
The plant is composed of a coil sheet metal cutting line integrated with a newly designed CSU 1000 model – automatic calendering and welding line; the welding laser source is 1,5000 W fibre “switched” for the pipe cutting system. Once the pipe is calendered with the Flexformer® system, it proceeds towards the fibre laser welding unit; at the end of the process the pipe is automatically picked up by a Fanuc robot (50 kg at wrist), which delivers it to the 3D cutting machine. All processes are carried out within the same automatic unit.
By means of a sophisticated vision system, the 3D cutting machine searches for the welded joint in order to perform perfectly aligned cuts; once the workpiece is cut according to the customer’s design, the robot picks it up by and places it on an already existing conveyor belt that moves it to a second pre-existing processing line that completes it.
With a cutting line able to process DX 54 and Inox 316 galvanized steel coils up to 1,000 mm wide and a thickness up to 1 mm, it is possible to cover big production lots without ever stopping the plant: we are talking about an annual amount of 650,000 finished products, which result in 3,600 working hours divided into two shifts with a 90% plant efficiency rate.
With the fibre laser technology, maintenance works both on welding and cutting units are almost entirely eliminated, assuring high quality standards and system reliability. Every time the pipe diameter and/or thickness changes, the customer does not need to perform any manual set up; in addition the change of the gas and fine dusts suction system installed on the 3D cutting machine (nozzle) is performed automatically by an anthropomorphic robot.
In the end, it is worthy to emphasize the importance of a factor that sometimes is taken for granted, but which should not be disregarded when speaking of a plant able to manufacture pipes with continual and sudden production changes. We are talking about the line management and programming software, which has been customized and produced by TTEngineering with sartorial mastery, just like a tailored suit. The software communicates directly with the customer’s management system to get information about items to be sent to production in a flexible and just-in-time way. Moreover, it is possible to have the two units working independently: this allows the customer to manufacture pipes addressed to other purposes while using the 3D pipe cutting machine manually to feed the other machining unit in the workshop.
As per tradition TTEngineering attends the major events in a never boring way, counting on the continuous technological innovation used by the company to enhance its automatic production systems, mostly addressed to the air ducts, air-conditioning and flues sectors.
Therefore, Euro BLECH 2014 is the stage chosen by the company from Como to introduce to the audience a breakthrough in the pipe laser cutting field: as stated on the slogan that overlooks TTEngineering’s stand in Hannover, with this innovation the company rewrote the rules of productivity. Indeed, it is a high-performing and dynamic machine with extraordinary performances for cutting thin materials from 0.4 to 3 mm by virtue of 50 m/min rapid movements on recirculating ball bearing guides and a 15 m/min max. cutting speed.
The new TTEngineering laser cutting system is able to process efficiently pipes with a maximum length, diameter and thickness of respectively 1,550 mm, 650 mm and 3 mm. The machine is loaded manually while the workpieces unloading is automatic for pieces up to 220 mm.
Featured by a compact design that makes it easy to be installed, this new system is inter alia designed to be integrated with anthropomorphic robots addressed to machine tending, with a drastic downtimes reduction connected to workpieces loading and unloading.
Precise, reliable and intuitive thanks to the TTEcutting software, the machine is also equipped with the following features: numerical control clamping claws spindle, laser cutting head anti-collision system, support rollers automatic adjustment system, which does not require any setup as diameter and/or thickness change.
If not rewritten, the level of expectations in terms of productivity has surely been raised.
TTEngineering has recently produced a fully automatic FMS on behalf of Domotechnika, the main Russian chimney pipes manufacturer. The present system provides for the just-in-time manufacturing of pipes and accessories such as single and double wall T-fittings, elbows and pipe sections.
This full factory plant, installed in Saint Petersburg, is the fifth one manufactured by the company from Lomazzo (Como) over the last four years and addressed to this sector, for which TTEngineering is definitely a well-established benchmark.
Due to both its prestige and production requirements, Domotechnika is one of the most impressive companies in this field; relying on a widespread network of distributors, agents and direct sellers, the company is indeed a market leader in the field of stoves, chimneys and materials for industrial and civil building in Eastern Europe. In particular, the plant commissioned to TTEngineering deals with the manufacturing of pipes and accessories addressed to the sector of chimney pipes, whose distributor is the brand named “Vulkano” and with whom the company is definitely the greatest Russian manufacturer.
Specifications and requirements were quite strict due to the need to increase both quality and throughput of the finished product, thus significantly reducing either production costs or the impact of the variables connected to manual activities. Therefore, the request dealt with the supply of a completely automated full factory plant capable to manufacture several types of workpieces just-in-time, from the easiest ones (single or double wall pipes) to the so-called “T-fittings” and elbows, working over two shifts a day, for an overall amount of around 4.000 hours per year and an annual production target of around 700.000 pipes.
Experience as a surplus value
It was indeed a very important and challenging order, which has been faced by TTEngineering nearly without any concern, since the company could rely on the experience gained over the latest years working on this type of plants.
As a matter of fact, the company from the province of Como has been able to turn the periods of market stagnation into new opportunities, thus making its own dimension a strong point to succeed in those fields, where even the most relevant competitors had some difficulties. “The confrontation with our competitors dealt with either engineering or return on investment for the customer” says the sales manager of TTEngineering. “For us this full factory plant is the fifth experience of this kind in a short time. We are currently the only company in the world with a complete know-how in the field of chimney pipes; this allows us to fully meet even the strictest and most challenging requirements, such as the ones expressed by Domotechnika.
Thanks to our knowledge and experience, we can design and manufacture the whole range of machines for the production of components addressed to the industry of chimney pipes and air conditioning; and that is exactly why we got the better of our German competitor for this order”.
The customer was able to evaluate the actual potential of the solution offered by TTEngineering not only through the usual videos or system layouts, but rather by watching closely a similar plant already installed by TTE at the Spanish production site of a German multinational corporation working in the same field: watching closely a full automatic plant working reliably over three shifts has been for sure a very important element for the decision taken by Domotechnika.
In balance between well-established solutions and novelties
The plant installed in Saint Petersburg relies on the widespread industry knowledge of TTEngineering: it integrates well-established machines and solutions, such as the roll-bending system Flexformer® with automatic set-up and the 2 kW Qswitch laser disk technology to be used for either pipes or T-necks welding, with brand new elements, such as the coil cutting line with double uncoiling reel, installed at the entrance of the FMS. This solution was developed and designed in order to grant the throughput required by the specifications, the variability of the materials used (316 and 304 stainless steel) and, above all, the necessary flexibility for just-in-time manufacturing of workpieces with different shapes, dimensions and features.
“The more than 40 m long plant is featured by a quite complex layout: six Fanuc anthropomorphic robots provide for workpiece grabbing and handling to feed the machine and are perfectly integrated within the production cycle” explains Claudio Pasquettin, owner and designer of TTEngineering. “In addition to the already mentioned Flexformer® system, there are two beading machines for the manufacturing of single and double wall pipes, each one with a well-defined production range in terms of possible diameters, but that’s not all: included in the FMS are also a laser cutting system for semi-finished processing, Class 1 stations for overlapped laser welding of T-fittings, several beading systems (dies designed by TTE included), production workcells for 2, 3 or 4-sector elbows and accumulation buffers”.
As a matter of fact it is a well structured and complex FMS, which has required the study and development of tailored solutions for both its mechanics and automation, balancing the latter in order to make the connection between machines easier”.
Handling the finished piece, not the semi-finished one
TTEngineering has provided its customer with a flexible, fully automated system, perfectly matching with its software system for production management, so that the production starts when the various orders are delivered, in compliance with the wished just-in-time philosophy.
“Thanks to the TTE Software Management, the programming main of the plant communicates with the entire company handling system and processes the information coming from the sales orders in real time, turning these data into either actual production orders or remarkable benefits” adds Mr Pasquettin. “Which benefits? First of all the fact that the plant handles the finished workpiece, not the semi-finished one; consequently, once the production order is launched, the result is granted for both piece quality and manufacturing time, thus allowing Domotechnika to easily estimate the deliveries. Throughput increase and quality of the pieces, absolute repeatability and flexibility are expected benefits. Another primary aspect is that with only one operator supervising and two workers dealing with both machines and dies set-up, it is possible to manage the whole factory production”.
“On top of that the just-in-time management of the finished product implies the reduction of both warehouse volume and its resulting costs, reducing delivery times and optimizing waste as well”.
The main reasons of TTEngineering satisfaction are the acquisition of another important reference such as Domotechnika and the fact that the customer itself has acknowledged both passion and enthusiasm showed by TTE during the pre-sales stage: this is a further proof that the reduced dimension of a company like TTE is not at all a limit, but rather the actual surplus value of this Italian reality, which is strongly focused on its customers’ satisfaction.
