Legnano Teknoelectric Company Improves Manufacturing Operations

Home , Legnano, Milan

Legnano Teknoelectric Company improves manufacturing operations thanks to advanced MES solution from Rockwell Automation Leading Italian steel processing company sees improvements in costs, time, quality, visibility, scheduling and logistics

Solutions A Rockwell Automation solution was installed, which included: • FactoryTalk Production Centre MES

Results • Improved cost allocation (material, equipment, operator time) • Increased visibility of production processes, downtimes and scraps production • Improved product quality checking (loss, permeability and thickness of input steel coils) • Improved logistic management (semi-finished products in warehouse) Background • Extended production scheduling to Legnano Teknoelectric Company based in Milan, Italy is a world leader different site locations worldwide (efficiently share sources and data in electrical steel processing used to produce magnetic cores for between the sites in Italy and electric transformers. The company was founded 30 years ago by the Dubai) Bertelli family –and is run today by the family’s second generation. The Bertellis place high value on people, quality and technology. Legnano Teknoelectric Company has built its strong reputation in the electrical design and manufacturing transformer business through its attention to detail and ability to handle maximum levels of customization With an annual capacity of more than 70,000 tons of steel and 25,000 magnetic cores, Legnano Teknoelectric Company delivers its solutions worldwide from Hong Kong and Brazil to Canada and the United Arab Emirates. Legnano Teknoelectric Company runs five production plants, four in the Milan area and one in Dubai, to produce steel coils, clamps and rods and assemble them into magnetic cores. Taken together, these plants cover more than 930,000 ft2 (87,000 m2), and feature seven longitudinal cutting lines, 30 slit coil horizontal cut lines, four packaging lines for semi-finished products, 130 manual assembly benches for cores, and 120 quality measuring systems. “In the past, different software providers underestimated the complexity of our production processes and offered unsuitable solutions. We needed an approach that was completely different,” Bertelli stated. Legnano Teknoelectric Company began searching for a solution offering visibility, production scheduling, automatic data collection and real-time reporting. They were looking for a vendor that fully understood their needs and could develop a project execution methodology on par with the advanced technologies in the company’s selection criteria. The solution Legnano Teknoelectric Challenge Company selected was Manufacturing “The increasing cost of raw materials is intruding on our Execution System (MES) solution based on Rockwell margins, and our competitors are performing aggressively Software FactoryTalk® ProductionCentre, from Rockwell with pricing policies,” explains Gianluigi Bertelli, Legnano Automation with system design, consulting, programming Teknoelectric Company manager and son of Legnano and integration from the Rockwell Automation Global Teknoelectric Company’s founder Michele Bertelli. “While Solutions team. our customers appreciate the top quality of our products, “The ability to understand our needs and the project in order to keep them, we have to meet their rising needs execution methodology of the Rockwell Automation in terms of cost reduction, on-time delivery and export Global Solutions team were as crucial as their high- challenges in extra-European markets.” performing technologies in our selection criteria,” In the last five years, Legnano Teknoelectric Company has Bertelli states. “In the past, different software providers invested to increase the level of automation of its cutting underestimated the complexity of our production and assembly lines and adopting new IT technologies to processes and offered unsuitable solutions. The approach digitalise all company operations, including from finance by Rockwell Automation was completely different: ,” to production. The continuous investment in R&D, new Bertelli stated. The Rockwell Automation project leader materials and state-of-the-art technologies has reduced Valerio Frediani, and the whole Milan office team production time and improved quality and throughput understood our demands perfectly, developed the most levels across Legnano Teknoelectric Company’s plants. suitable solution for Legnano Teknoelectric Company But the company wanted more. “Our machinery is already and worked closely with Alessandro Morelli, Legnano running at maximum speed in cutting and assembly Teknoelectric Company MES Project leader. “We could operations, so to ensure continued progress, we need to immediately foresee the potential and excellence of the reduce downtime and scrap production,” Bertelli says. Rockwell Automation solution.” Legnano Teknoelectric Company also identified room for improvement in the quality inspection process for steel coils and delivery time. “We need to check the loss, permeability and thickness of the steel in our coils directly on the lines, before we process it further so we can select the right material for each specific application,” Bertelli adds. “We also need to be able to set up integrated production sites in different worldwide locations because our high-speed processing lines don’t make much of an impact with customers when shipping of the final core takes 3 or 4 weeks.” Legnano Teknoelectric Company began to address this need with the opening of a plant in Dubai the previous year. However, multi-branded lines and machinery, as well as differing time zones with the Dubai plant opening, made production scheduling and data sharing between the sites difficult. Solution Legnano Teknoelectric Company wanted to leverage FactoryTalk ProductionCentre MES and operations management software to create seamless integration between several IT software systems they’d set up over the previous five years. Since 2008 the company rolled out SolidEdge 3D CAD, Teamcenter PLM, Microsoft Navision ERP IBM Cognos business intelligence and IBM File Net enterprise content management applications. The company needed an MES system capable of direct communication with other IT software wirelessly.

Visibility of production processes, role, from production to purchase and sales departments precise cost allocation, extension of the MES scope to to top management. material quality control and logistic process management were of primary importance when we selected an MES The bi-directional integration between the MES and ERP solution, and determined how it would be integrated with software, has allowed Legnano Teknoelectric Company to other existing systems. achieve a better quantification of actual costs of materials, line-performance and productivity for each order, even FactoryTalk ProductionCentre software was directly during preliminary commissioning. Using FactoryTalk connected to Navision ERP through web services. At the Production Centre software, the company’s team entered same time, the MES software ‘talks’ to the production the ‘analytics accounting era’. “We need to know how lines in the different plants, gathering data directly from much a single piece, core, or clamp costs before putting it multi-branded PLCs in field to manage and efficiently track into production,” Bertelli explains. materials and orders. For Legnano Teknoelectric Company, FactoryTalk For Legnano Teknoelectric Company, FactoryTalk ProductionCentre software functionalities translated to an ProductionCentre MES software replaced a paper and increased visibility of line-processes, down to every ounce spread sheet-based system to collect line-performance (kilo) of processed steel in each plant. “Using the MES, we data. Prior to the MES implementation, the company was monitor actual material stock flows for each production using an Excel system and scheduling production based site and are able to streamline raw materials stocks. on random sample evaluations. Order schedules were Implementing this MES solution has made us aware of managed manually through spread sheets, and required hidden costs, which had been translating into lost profits,” a large amount of time and resources. The MES solution Bertelli adds. allows the company to track working processes, scrap and waste, creates an automatic production scheduling and An MES system has allowed Legnano Teknoelectric provides unprecedented visibility into production. Each Company to take advantage of automatic tracking of semi- employee has access to information most relevant to their finished materials stocked in semi-finished warehouses, resulting in optimised management of on-site warehouse and complete visibility of shipments and stocks.

Results “By introducing FactoryTalk ProductionCentre software, our finance department obtains a more detailed and real-time knowledge of line-production processes,” Bertelli says. “The advantage of relying on MES software is we have real-time, specific information, being collected directly from each line, or from a single machine. This specific information supports users at all levels to make more strategic decisions.” The MES solution helped Legnano Teknoelectric Company minimise potential re-works and improve quality finished products through the reinforcement of a quality-checks collected via paper and stored in Excel charts. They lacked driven system. Legnano Teknoelectric Company is also precise monitoring and version control and were not benefiting from a better management of production plans immediately available to other plants around the world. and an improved traceability of semi-finished stocks. Legnano Teknoelectric Company will be extending the FactoryTalk ProductionCentre MES project to its Dubai “The MES makes us more aware of our production site as well. “The unified production model of this MES processes and allows us to quantify downtimes and software can provide access to virtually all plant data hidden costs. The software brings objectiveness to our sources from any location.” data.” Bertelli said. The tight integration between FactoryTalk Prior to the implementation of FactoryTalk ProductionCentre MES and the other software tools allows ProductionCentre MES software, data and numbers were Legnano Teknoelectric Company to minimise vertical software applications and interfaces, leading to a gradual optimisation and standardisation of IT platforms. “IT and electronics should simplify daily business operations,” said Bertelli. “They should not make them more difficult. The Rockwell Automation solution definitely met our needs.”

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The results mentioned above are specific to Legnano Teknoelectric Company’s use of Rockwell Automation products and services in conjunction with other products. Specific results may vary for other customers.

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