Alluminio Sammarinese is a company that specialises in the design and production of custom-made industrial profiles — in particular, for the automotive, electronic, furniture and construction sectors.
The business was founded in 1981 and has grown steadily, thanks in part to a programme of investment in the latest manufacturing technologies, which recently included the installation of two Haas UMC-750 five-axis universal machining centres (
www.haascnc.com).
The company is located in San Marino, which is ‘surrounded’ by Italy and claims to be the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world.
Starting out as an extrusion company mainly serving the window-manufacturing industry, Alluminio Sammarinese has subsequently diversified into a number of other sectors and activities.
Today, the company sees itself more as an engineering business than an extrusion business. In fact, the window industry now represents just 1% of its output.
CEO Stefano Ceccato, whose father started the company, says increased competition from low-wage economies is the biggest threat to the future of the firm. “Some 10-20 years ago, our main competitors were from Italy; now, they
are from Eastern Europe, Turkey and sometimes China.
To overcome the threat they pose, we have to raise our level of technology, taking on more-complex machining and more-complex extrusions. In addition, the products need to offer higher levels of precision and surface finish — particularly for sectors such as automotive.”
Mr Ceccato says the Haas five-axis machines are part of the company’s plan to produce more-complex parts. “We bought the UMC-750s because of their very attractive quality-to-price ratio.
We make a lot of complex automotive parts, and we needed five-axis machines that weren’t too expensive. The components tend to be big, so we purchased two Haas UMCs; one is running while the other is being loaded and unloaded. They are arranged in a small cell, with one operator to run both.”
Although they were installed only a few months ago, the Haas machines are already working 21hr a day (across three 7hr shifts).
Alluminio Sammarinese says the machines have worked perfectly from the outset — aside from one technical issue relating to the use of bespoke fixtures that was easily solved by the local Haas Factory Outlet, which is a Division of the machine tool supplier Celada.
“The UMC-750s work well. We are currently testing more precision parts to put on the machines, and we are very happy with the results. In fact, we would ideally like a bigger version of the UMC-750. We are always investing, and
a machine such as that would be very attractive for us.”
Unsurprisingly, the entire output from Alluminio Sammarinese’s 10,000sq m facility is exported — 60% to Italy, with the remainder going to the rest of Europe. The automotive sector, for which the Haas machines were predominantly acquired, accounts for about 25% of the company’s customers.
Alluminio Sammarinese recently ordered two more Haas UMC-750s. Both are Super Speed (SS) models with 15,000rev/ min spindles.