The Buyer Expertise Middle at Prima Energy’s Seinäjoki, Finland, facility has full steel processing techniques on show. Photographs: Prima Energy
In 2008, Prima Industrie, Turin, Italy, bought Finn-Energy, then in Kauhava, Finland, bringing collectively a pacesetter in laser chopping expertise and a pioneer in punching and shearing mixture machines, panel benders, and materials automation. In 2011, the 2 entities mixed to change into Prima Energy, merging world gross sales and repair networks and even adopting each corporations’ colours for the brand new emblem. In 2023, personal fairness corporations bought Prima Energy, eradicating it from the Italian Inventory Trade. As a part of its final public filings in 2022, Prima Energy reported an annual income approaching $570 million. In 2024, the group reported annual revenues approaching $640 million.
Even with all of the adjustments because the two corporations got here collectively, Prima Energy’s plan of providing an entire lineup of steel fabricating applied sciences made sense for the market. The world was thirsty for laser chopping machines and technological developments from machine device producers. In the meantime, steel fabricators have been nonetheless churning out loads of thin-gauge rectangular and sq. packing containers that made punching and shearing mixture machines and panel benders all of the extra related.
What had modified, as effectively, through the years have been software program and automation. The 2 labored collectively to make sure that machines might speak with one another, making attainable the dream of one-piece movement. Software program provided extra environment friendly processing of orders, nesting, machine programming, and scheduling, and the automation made it in order that fewer workers have been wanted to run techniques—gear related to one another and with storage techniques and buffering stations.
In the present day, these kinds of techniques choices look like what’s wanted to make the promise of the AI-powered economic system a actuality. Because the world’s main tech giants pour hundreds of thousands into the creation of infrastructure—racks, cupboards, energy era, water remedy, and HVAC techniques—essential to energy information facilities, steel fabricators are searching for extra environment friendly methods to supply elements to maintain up with orders tied to this supercharged financial section.
And this gained’t finish any time quickly. At the least, that’s what trade pundits are suggesting. The worldwide information middle market is anticipated to develop at a compounded annual charge of 10% to 2030, in response to Prima Energy officers.
“We have now virtually every little thing a producer would want. We have now laser chopping, punching, bending, and automation,” stated Enrico Garino, Prima Energy’s chief advertising officer and head of robotics, throughout a gathering with commerce journalists flown to Europe as a part of a press junket.
Newly expanded manufacturing amenities in Italy and a brand new constructing in Finland are a strong basis from which Prima Energy hopes to be a significant contributor within the creation and exploration of the digital frontier.
Doubling Down on Bending
Cologna Veneta won’t imply a lot to a median vacationer visiting Italy, however these in steel fabricating may need a unique perspective. The area is the cradle of recent panel bending expertise, which is why it is smart that it’s house to Prima Energy’s Manufacturing Unit Bending (PUB) facility.
Over time, corporations on this sector have emerged and stayed in the identical geographic location due to all of the experience out there there. If a machine device firm is introducing a line of panel benders, these machines are most likely made on this space underneath a personal labeling deal.
In 1997, Finn-Energy bought considered one of these corporations, and Finn-Energy Italia was born. In 2001, Finn-Energy bought the corporate to the Swedish fund named EQT Group.
Prima Energy hosted Tech Stream, a buyer occasion with technical shows and gear demonstrations, at its headquarters in Turin, Italy, in late September.
Beginning in April 2024, Prima Energy started a significant renovation and enlargement of the PUB facility. The primary a part of this exercise was the addition of greater than 26,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing area.
“To construct a brand new manufacturing unit, we might have wanted to maneuver about 20 or 30 km away,” stated Stefano Gecchele, Prima Energy’s bending product unit supervisor. “We wished to remain shut for our workers. We didn’t wish to lose them.”
As a result of the PUB is considerably landlocked in its industrial park, Prima Energy needed to construct on a close-by parking zone to get the area it wanted. The result’s an L-shaped manufacturing space.
Preassembly is completed within the unique manufacturing area. Sourced elements, like frames, are assembled and prepped earlier than transferring to remaining meeting within the new addition. Moreover, a small area within the unique facility is devoted to press brake meeting, a minor however needed a part of the enterprise as a result of not all sheet steel elements could be shaped on a panel bender. Prima Energy affords servo-electric brakes as much as 200 tons. (Use of servo-electric press brakes has elevated in recent times as they don’t require as a lot power to run as hydraulic press brakes and in addition require much less upkeep. Moreover, these press brakes are prized for his or her accuracy and consistency.)
Within the remaining meeting space, 10 to 12 panel bending machines could be present in some state of building. Gecchele stated that with the extra area, Prima Energy expects to supply as much as 120 machines per 12 months—a big improve over the 40 or so benders it was producing about six years in the past.
The necessity for the enlargement was by no means extra obvious than after the pandemic when manufacturing simply took off. The demand for panel bending machines outpaced provide, stretching meeting occasions out to 14 months. The tight confines of the unique facility didn’t assist issues, particularly as machines grew bigger. For instance, the EBe Categorical Bender 2226 can accommodate a component size of just about 150 in. (The machine additionally has a most bend top of simply over 8 in.)
Ryan O’Connor, Prima Energy’s advertising supervisor for North America, identified that elevated manufacturing comes at a time when panel bending is in nice demand. “Automated bending is turning into the usual in most high-volume-throughput corporations,” he stated.
Of the panel benders produced by Prima Energy, about 90% can be a part of automated techniques.
Extra Room for Laser Machines
Prima Industrie was an early pioneer within the space of 3D laser chopping. It later added 2D laser chopping machines to its lineup within the early Nineties.
With that sort of lineage, Prima Energy bulked up its laser chopping machine capabilities with the completion of its new 118,000-sq.-ft. facility constructed on its campus in Turin. Commerce journalists had the chance to tour the brand new facility as a part of Tech Stream 2025 actions on the firm headquarters.
A sheet steel clean heads down a conveyor towards a panel bending machine at Prima Energy’s Buyer Expertise Middle in Finland.
The brand new enlargement is primarily devoted to 2D and 3D laser chopping machine manufacturing, however it additionally comprises room for press brake meeting and machine coaching for service technicians and clients. The laser machines start meeting in a single cell and go away that space solely when they’re accomplished and have been examined.
“Every machine you see has an order,” Garino stated. “We don’t construct machines for inventory.”
The objectives of this laser manufacturing are reliability and stability, in response to Giulio Amore, Prima Energy’s 2D laser product supervisor. Once more, a variety of these machines are a part of bigger techniques, and if they’re to run with out operator intervention or as a part of a lights-out manufacturing state of affairs, the lasers must function with out incident. Meaning the software program has to ship chopping directions that decrease errors like half tip-ups, and the laser must carry out because it was designed.
These laser chopping machines are virtually at all times hooked up to elements storage techniques, comparable to the corporate’s Evening Prepare automated storage and retrieval towers. Amore confused that this sort of automation is rather more than simply warehousing of uncooked materials, calling them “logistics facilities,” as additionally they can retailer laser-cut blanks that may not but be prepared to move to bending or different downstream processes.
Additionally nestled in a piece of the brand new facility is Prima Energy’s newest 3D laser chopping machine—the Giga Laser Subsequent. The machine is an effective instance of how the corporate is leaning on software program to show tried-and-true applied sciences into cutting-edge machine instruments.
When a lot of the manufacturing world is utilizing industrial robots to reinvent store flooring, Prima Energy selected to make use of a well-known cartesian structure and linear drives to maneuver 4 separate laser chopping heads independently and shortly round a workpiece. These retractable arms work in overlapping areas, and superior anticollision controls preserve the fast-paced chopping heads from hitting one another, although they function as shut as 40 mm from one another.
As a result of ancillary gear like laser sources, chillers, and electrical panels are designed to be positioned on a mezzanine over the chopping chamber, your entire laser chopping machine occupies roughly a 33- by 33-ft. area. Firm officers stated that one compact 3D laser can match the output of 4 single-head 3D laser machines.
As with different Prima Energy machine instruments, the Giga Laser Subsequent is designed in order that it might match into stamping or different automated traces. Robots could be built-in into the 3D laser to make sure that elements could be eliminated and changed whereas the 4 lasers have a tendency to a different workpiece. In these automated cells, minimal idle time between chopping motion is claimed to be lower than 2 seconds. Prima Energy officers added that the core utility and orders obtained for this new four-headed workhorse are in high-volume automotive sectors for elements comparable to door rings and different high-strength metal physique elements.
A New Dwelling in Finland
In 2018, Prima Energy accomplished its transfer to a brand new facility in Seinäjoki, Finland. It marked the primary time that each one facets of the corporate—together with engineering, R&D, manufacturing, and the gear showroom—have been underneath one roof.
Beforehand, manufacturing was accomplished down the street in Kauhava. The manufacturing facility had been expanded a number of occasions, and the patchwork configuration was not conducive to a streamlined manufacturing course of. Moreover, as demand has grown for extra versatile manufacturing techniques, manufacturing wanted extra space than its roughly 100,000-sq.-ft. store flooring allowed.
Prima Energy’s new house has about 400,000 sq. ft. of area and vast aisles to accommodate motion of elements and assemblies. It additionally comprises a spacious portray facility that may accommodate the big subassemblies for mixture machines and automation techniques.
Antti Kuusisaari, Prima Energy’s vice chairman, system gross sales, stated having R&D, software program builders, and engineers all inside a brief elevator journey and stroll to the manufacturing unit has helped to optimize manufacturing efforts. It’s a significant purpose that the manufacturing unit is ready to flip round system orders in a matter of weeks.
The mixture machines and modular sections that make up the storage techniques are fabricated individually earlier than being introduced collectively in remaining meeting, the place models are put collectively and examined. A few of the techniques, like a laser chopping machine or panel bender, are usually not accomplished till the entire parts arrive on the steel fabricating buyer’s website. With developments in digital twin expertise and simulations, nonetheless, Kuusisaari stated that Prima Energy can be sure that the techniques can be operational upon set up and commissioning within the discipline.
What makes these kinds of versatile manufacturing techniques uncommon is that they are often organized in any kind of manner. Some corporations may require materials movement to go in a selected course. They may want machines to be on one explicit facet of the storage system. Outlets may want a line to truly bend at a 90-degree angle to accommodate a wall. These put in techniques hardly ever look precisely like one other.
“We have now accomplished so many combos previously,” Kuusisaari stated, “that we all know what we will do after we get a brand new sort of request from a buyer.”
The place It Comes Collectively
In all of those Prima Energy amenities, you’ll see “Evolve by integration” on advertising materials or painted on a wall. It’s greater than an organization slogan; it captures the dynamics of at the moment’s steel fabricating market.
These steel fabricators that depend on the methods of the previous—working stand-alone machines, piling up WIP within the aisles as a result of planning is poor, and losing materials—are going to fall more and more behind rivals. Outlets want the most recent software program and versatile manufacturing techniques to make sure environment friendly and high quality manufacturing of elements, however that solely can occur when the entire parts are built-in.
Disparate techniques in a steel fabricating firm are islands of obsolescence. Connecting them places a company in a a lot better place to benefit from future alternatives.
See integration at work on the store flooring
For a more in-depth take a look at how this integration technique performs out on the store flooring, learn Rob Colman’s weblog on how Epta and Steelcomp are utilizing carefully built-in storage and steel processing techniques to drive effectivity and suppleness in very completely different manufacturing environments.
