Every year PALFINGER processes around 20,000 tons of high-tensile steel panels to manufacture loading cranes and other loading and hoisting equipment. Off-cut optimization is therefore a key concern shared by the whole management team in the company. Thanks to Alma’s act/cut software, the sheet metal plates to cut can be automatically nested in half of the time with minimized off-cut.

“The fact that Alma is internationally established has been a key criterion when we decided to choose act/cut software… Today, act/cut has become our group-wide nesting standard solution”

“The software was not only faster but also almost as efficient as an experienced user… We estimated time savings of 50 percent throughout all plants”

The more little parts of different geometry are contained in the nesting orders, the higher the off-cut. When processing big parts, we sometimes have considerably less than 20 percent”. To minimize the off-cut rate orders may be over-nested. If there is still some space left on the panel, the system places additional parts beyond the scope of the order. In addition to that orders may be declared as filler parts, in order to fill panels showing voids where necessary. Alma has programmed these additional functions especially for PALFINGER.

Time savings of more than 50 percent

The users have become much more efficient thanks to the automatic nesting with act/cut. “Orders, which were formerly manually nested by an operator during his working time, today barely take one third of the operator’s time. We estimated time savings of 50 percent throughout all plants”. Thanks to the time savings, PALFINGER is able to process with the same team much more nesting orders than in the past and accept special tasks, which can’t be automated as easily.

The probably most important benefit from the company’s point of view is the stability of the results, regardless the expertise of the relevant user: “If the machine parameters are correctly set, I simply need to press the button to get a reliable nesting, no matter, if the user has worked on the system for 3 months or for 3 years”.

For more information on ALMA Sheet and Plate software contact the NZ distributor at sales@rpmcnc.co.nz or phone 022 653 4817.