Partnerships are essential in life. Sure, there are some folks that can go it alone, but typically, there is power in numbers. There is also productivity in numbers – especially in the world of manufacturing.
The alliance between Toyota and General Motors in the 1980s might be one of the most notable industry collaborations, but it certainly isn’t the only instance of two companies syncing up to leverage one another’s strengths. Just think of all the ancillary hardware and software manufacturers that create smart technologies to augment an operation. These companies must collaborate with the primary equipment providers to ensure their products will work in harmony on customers’ shop floors.
Powerful partnerships such as these were on full display at the Dimeco headquarters in Pirey, France, in June 2023. For four days, Dimeco, known for its coil handling and press feed lines, hosted an open house featuring facility tours, equipment demonstrations and presentations from a variety of partners, including Aida. A quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a French writer, poet and journalist, found in the show program, exemplified the potential of these partnerships: “Stone has no hope of being anything other than stone. But to collaborate, it assembles and becomes a temple.”
Founded in 1957, Dimeco has taken this philosophy to heart and cultivated strategic relationships with a variety of businesses, including the world’s leading press manufacturers. The tour of Dimeco’s 80,000-sq.-ft. facility put these collaborations on display for attendees.
Integration on display
With more than 80,000 installations in 60 countries, Aida is easily one of the largest press manufacturers in the world. The company produces a variety of mechanical and servo presses, starting at 35 tons and going up to its largest one, a 3,012-ton press manufactured in Italy. Within this tonnage, Aida serves progressive machines, transfer machines and blanking lines. Additionally, the company features a range of precision forming machines that offer an alternative approach to blanking and forming operations.
During the facility tour, open house attendees got a first-hand look at an innovative integration solution: a 150-ton Aida servo press equipped with a Dimeco coil-feed line. The DSF servo press features a 200-mm stroke, 40-kW motor and delivers 9,500 newton meters of torque at 2,250 revolutions per min.
Typically, one would assume that the press and feed line would be separately controlled, but thanks to the two companies’ tight relationship, functionality of both are controlled through just one interface. Modern challenges – primarily, persistent labor shortages – must be met with modern solutions – outdated machine controls can no longer be tolerated. Therefore, the process to integrate into Dimeco’s main machine interface was explained by Michele Archenti, sales and marketing manager for Aida’s European markets, in an informative presentation, which kicked off the open house event.
“The Aida machine is driven by an SS7 Siemens PLC at the heart of the machine,” Archenti said. “We have an ethernet network on the press that connects to an industrial PC from Beckhoff, which is the brain of the motion of the motor. In this case, we have an industrial PC frequency converter servo motor driving the press.
“On the other side, we have also an industrial PC from Beckhoff with a multi-touch panel,” he added. “Normally, you have pages dedicated to the press alone, but in this case, we integrated functionality of [the coil-feed line] into our HMI. To control this by a Profinet network, we connect to the machine where there is an exchange of data from the press panel to, in this case, the feeder.”
newton meters of torque at 2,250 revolutions per min.
Throughout Aida’s partnership with Dimeco, the two companies have worked on various projects together – and on larger presses, such as a 1,000-ton transfer press integrated with a Dimeco coil-feed line. In this particular case, the level of integration was even higher than the example on display. In addition to integrating the feeder’s functionality into the HMI, a straightener, decoiler and lubrication machine were also added.
“Depending on customer demand, we can integrate everything or only supply the press,” Archenti said. “We tailor our response according to the customer’s needs.”
Flexible tech
Archenti’s presentation focused on the integration successes realized with Dimeco, but it also offered attendees an overview of Aida, its product lines and the benefits delivered from Aida’s servo press offerings. AiCare, the company’s latest Internet of Things (IoT) solution, was also described.
Established in Tokyo in 1917, Aida primarily focused on the domestic market, but in the early 1970s, it ventured beyond its borders, establishing a presence in the United States and later Europe. Today, it has locations on all seven continents.
“A significant point in Aida’s history happened in the 1990s with the development of servo presses,” Archenti explained. “We manufacture mechanical and servo presses with the servo being an evolution of the mechanical press, an evolution that we pioneered at Aida.
outlined the benefits of servo press technology.
“The goal was to control a machine that at the time wasn’t CNC controlled,” he continued. “In 1993, Aida Japan started installing servo motors from the market, mostly from Fanuc, on the small gap frame presses that were manufactured in the hundreds, if not thousands a year. Throughout the 1990s, they kept developing the solution, coming out in 1997 with the first servo press with a Fanuc motor.”
At that point, Aida realized that there wasn’t a servo motor on the market that was fully suitable for press operations, so the company started down the R&D road. “That meant having a motor that was running at very low revolutions, but providing extremely high-torque output,” Archenti said.
In 1999, Aida developed its own brand and range of motors, leading to DSF, the company’s proprietary brand of servo presses. In 2002, full servo motor production began, which today encompasses a range of motors from 30 kW to 500 kW, equipping the entire scope of Aida machines.
“The first advantage of a servo press is its degree of flexibility, which is not possible with a mechanical press,” Archenti explained. “This flexibility, of course, is in the motion it gives to the machine.
“With a conventional mechanical press, the drive train goes through a clutch and brake, a flywheel and an AC motor to continuously turn the flywheel,” he added. “Conversely, with a servo press, we replace the clutch flywheel in the AC motor with an emergency brake while the drive shaft is directly connected to the servo drive. Our servo motor features an amplifier and a bank of capacitors.”
Archenti explained to attendees that the bank of capacitors is used to store excess energy from the stamping process, absorbing the energy from the motor while stabilizing the energy required from the network. In addition to replacing the flywheel, brake and clutch with a servo motor that can precisely control energy output, the servo motor can achieve a variety of stroke lengths and high-precision slide accuracy.
of the company’s AiCare IoT solution.
“With a servo press, we can determine, via the motor, the movement that we want to give to the slide,” he said. “Particularly interesting in progressive and blanking applications is the pendulum mode where we can limit or decrease the stroke of the machine while maintaining the maximum base speed. You could have a machine where, even though you have a maximum speed of 60 strokes per min., you could achieve up to 160 strokes per min. if you partialize the stroke to a very short one.”
Data functionality
Aida came to the market with its AiCare IoT solution in 2019, which monitors the machine functionality, collects data and makes that data available for analysis downstream. The solution includes three main functionalities: one for forming information, one oriented around operational data and one focused on maintenance, making data organization for KPI analysis easy and streamlined. Readings and analysis can be done on a PC or mobile phone. This is made possible by the same Beckhoff unit used for the servo press and machine motion, which transfers information from the press to Microsoft’s Azure cloud service.
For the forming data, “we collect information from sensors that are already on the machine or from tailored solutions where additional sensors are implemented for further analysis and functionality,” Archenti said. “For example, users can choose to monitor the load curve thanks to data acquisitions made every 10 milliseconds. This data can be analyzed and cross-analyzed with a specific die to a specific hour or operator.”
He continued, explaining that the operational data capability of AiCare allows users to monitor the availability of a machine, when it’s on or off and why. “For example, a number of dies can be selected to display which are running and which may have had alarms,” he explained. “Users can set alarms assigned to instances when specific dies are experiencing specific working conditions.”
From a carbon footprint standpoint, he said that users could also set alarms for certain levels of energy consumption for specific jobs. These smart capabilities were also extended to the maintenance requirements of a machine.
“We have bronze bearing temperature sensors on the machines that automatically deliver information about a machine’s temperature changes,” Archenti said. “There are also oil quality sensors to alert users when the oil should be changed or replaced. The sensors can also alert users to deteriorating situations based on the makeup of the oil.”
The overall system can also schedule maintenance activities, so they won’t be overlooked or put off to a later date. Considering that most component makers know the expected lifespan of their products in hours or cycles, this data can be uploaded to the system to create alerts for when a replacement or new component is due.
Smart, integrated systems, like the collaborative line on display at Dimeco Days, are in higher demand by the day. Manufacturers need the high precision, energy savings, and data collection and analysis capabilities offered by Aida’s technologies, and Aida, in turn, needs sophisticated partners like Dimeco that can help make these systems work.
