A big change undertaken to give a strong turn to the working method. Pianca decided to explore the huge market of finishing technologies to find a solution that would minimize their machine downtime, while responding to the need to paint smaller and smaller batches with automatic color changeover, and at the same time, keep the painting cycles running at the maximum speed.
It’s a new chapter in Pianca’s history, founded in 1956 to quickly rise to leadership status in the furniture industry. Specialized in the creation of systems and furnishing accessories for residential environments, both for the sleeping area and the living area, Pianca has an approach to design focused on the customization of products and spaces, aimed at meeting the style requirements of flexible, mobile and change-oriented living.
Pianca successfully partnered with Cefla Finishing to maintain its signature extreme customization while at the same time increasing productivity – which was negatively affected by frequent color changes. The company’s production strategy focuses on “Batch 1”: this approach means that each piece is unique and requires personalized settings and extremely frequent color changeover.
The new coating line by Cefla Finishing replaced three obsolete systems, centralizing the coating process in a single high-performance line. To address the customer’s brief, i.e. improve productivity and efficiency, Cefla experts have implemented innovative solutions allowing to significantly reduce machine downtime and automate processes previously performed manually.
The new finishing line allows the processing of small batches and single workpieces, dramatically reducing – or eliminating altogether – machine downtime. Pianca has thus managed to achieve the same or even better standards of quality, customization and flawless service, while cutting production costs.
“The challenges that Pianca posed to us spurred us to come up with the best system that could help them achieve their objectives”, said Cristian Giovannini, Product Manager at Cefla Finishing. “We had the pleasure to work closely with an industry player capable of skilfully combining industrial expertise and craftsmanship – topped with passion, Italian design and a solid corporate identity. However, to preserve such authenticity and continue to offer quality as well as customization, innovation had to be introduced.
This is where Cefla Finishing was asked to provide support with its know-how, offering the necessary skills and experience to change the coating process without impacting the quality and visual features that have made the Pianca brand famous”.
Pianca, with its furnishing accessories, is committed to meeting the needs of a lifestyle based on flexibility, mobility and change. These priorities are at the very core of its production. In an industry where uniqueness is an increasingly valuable asset, eternally in contrast to price, the ability to offer an endless range of colors and finishes, even for single pieces, is hugely appreciated.
This strategy has significantly contributed to Pianca’s success and to the strengthening of its leadership in the global market, becoming key to its modus operandi.
However, the market scenario became even more challenging when increasingly competitive prices, and not just product uniqueness, started to be a precondition. How is it possible to develop an efficient industrialized production process when, in actual practice, large-scale production is not applicable?
The weak link in Pianca’s production chain was the color changeover process. Having to frequently stop the line to produce many different small batches hugely affects production efficiency. That’s why optimizing the color changeover process was key to making a huge impact on Pianca’s productivity.
Cefla Finishing technicians have studied a way to apply Cefla’s innovative solutions capable of reducing machine downtime. One of these is “Timeskip”, the patented device allowing the line robot to continue coating with one arm, while the other arm can carry out color changeover or maintenance operations.
The more efficient management of color changeover, however, did not happen at the expense of product customization, which, on the contrary, was further maximized. Stefano De Meio, Industrialisation & KPO Office at Pianca, has no doubt: “The solutions developed with Cefla Finishing have brought several benefits, including the possibility of achieving extreme customization that all furniture manufacturers must handle, through endless color combinations and even sample colors. If you complement this with minimizing or eliminating altogether the time needed for changing colors on the machine, with a substantial reduction of downtime, you win the challenge.
That’s why I would recommend Cefla Finishing to any company who want to have a more dynamic production, deploying innovative solutions designed and made by an organized and reliable partner”.
THE COATING PLANT
Thanks to the new technologies introduced, the new Pianca plant has revolutionized the company’s finishing process and has replaced three distinct finishing lines, optimizing finishing in a single production cycle. The line is equipped with an automatic warehouse performing multiple functions: line feeding buffer, designed to store the material to be coated, to then independently feed the line without needing any supervision by human operators; material storage, to reduce color changeovers on the return line; Line unloading buffer, if operators are temporarily unavailable for these operations.
The line also consists of an automatic material reading and identification system for the incoming piece: the color request is sent via a QR code scanner to the coating robot. The scanner is able to read the labels on each workpiece to be finished.
The 2-arm coating robot is the core part of the coating process. The two arms are able to operate independently and carry out color changeover operations in “hidden time”, without stopping production on the line.
A vertical oven is integrated into the line to complete the material drying cycle.
The system is equipped with line software, to make line management easier in consideration of the degree of complexity linked with frequent customization requirements.
The new coating plant allows waste to be minimized, both in terms of downtime and in terms of product loss, contributing to achieve greater productivity and a faster return on investment. The implementation of “Timeskip” and the integration with a mixing and color changeover system not only reduce downtime, but also contribute to limiting paint waste, both during color changeover and in terms of waste product disposal after each operation, resulting in lower waste management costs.
