FRESMAK INVESTS THREE MILLION EUROS IN PEOPLE, PROCESS EFFICIENCY, EXTERNAL ACTION AND R&D

Fresmak, a specialist company in the manufacture of high-pressure vices and clamping solutions, is currently engaged in the development of a strategic plan for 2020 which contemplates an investment of around three million Euros to expand production means and human resources in order to meet the planned projects.

The strategy pursued by Fresmak contemplates four main pillars with persons first and Processes efficiency, international market development and the R&D activity as strategic objectives of growth.

For the company's management, attaining the efficiency objective entails the reassessment at all levels within the company, from the upgrading of the facilities to the reorganisation of human resources, through to a new lay out design which affects the area of manufacturing processes such as storage and logistics activities.

The refurbishment of the facilities, which have a 3,000m² surface area, has led to the upgrading of the offices and the incorporation of new machinery and equipment, following the parameters set by the SMED (Single-minute Digit exchange of die) and Lean Manufacturing concepts, in line with automation and cycle time reduction in machining processes, moving towards a wider product range with smaller batches, and maintaining efficiency. A modern chemical laboratory and an electronics testing chamber, currently underway, cap off the manufacturing centre reorganisation process , whose latest addition has been a triple headstock interior and exterior grinding machines, which will be in operation in 2000.

The new electronic testing chamber will accelerate another of the development axes of Fresmak's plan to move forward into the Industry 4.0. framework. The company is working on the incorporation of sensorisation and monitoring technologies for the clamping systems during the machining process, via Bluetooth, which will improve the traceability of the part until delivery at destination. The project will require the design of proprietary software, as well as the study of a solution which restricts the high consumption of wireless technology.

The investments already made have led to the recent implementation of a dual headstock, double-turret DMG lathe for the purposes of standardising operations; a three-dimensional Zeiss machine, with a micron level measurement capacity, which has gone hand in hand with the refurbishment of the metrology and control lab; the redesign of the assembly and dispatch area, that has two new fully automated vertical warehouses, optimising the parts' space and handling times; and, finally, the refurbishment of the washing station that functions using modified alcohols and via ultrasound.

Later this year, Fresmak will complete one of the most revolutionary projects in the clamping systems sector, which has monopolised most of the efforts of the R&D department, and that will be unveiled in 2020. Financed by the European Horizon 2020 programme, the industrialisation and marketing of the F-Grip, a clamping system based on the use of a recuperative and reusable adhesive, which will get off the ground next year, following a prototype stage and maximum development for its processing, in which the new chemical lab equipped with a laboratory reactor, an extractor and a furnace that has entailed an all-or-nothing commitment to the validation of the solution. The F-Grip is especially suitable for aeronautical industry applications, in airframe parts and in the machining of turbine blades as well in the medicine and ceramics field, and the company has mentioned having received inquiries from geographic markets such as Russia, the Netherlands, Italy or Germany. Its managers allude to the fact that, based on the market reach of the F-Grip, growth expectations point to doubling turnover in 2023. Until then, the R&D team continues to investigate, in collaboration with Ikerlan, for the purposes of obtaining new developments in the physical component of the adhesive.

In the foreign sector, Fresmak plans to consolidate its presence in the European countries of Germany and France, where it has 80 distributors and targets the Russian market. As well as identifying great potential in the United States, the company has initiated negotiations with a distributor for undertaking the marketing of the quick-change Zero Point clamping system.

Source: Empresa XXI