Moulds and mechanical components

SMIMec is the division of SMI specialized in the manufacturing and machining of moulds and mechanical components.
Highly automated machines run 7 days a week round the clock in order to produce the components for all the assembly plants of the SMI Group. More specifically, SMIMec has installed 12 CNC machining centres connected in FMS line which can run even without  operator by following pre-set production programmes (CAM).

This allows a remarkable time and cost reduction in the assembly process of the SMI Group’s products, the 80% of which are composed of “home-made” components.
Besides manufacturing structural parts made of aluminium, steel, iron and cast iron, SMIMec fabricates moulds made of special alloys to be used for SMIForm stretch-blow moulders.

The 12 machining centres can achieve an output of more than 15,000 moulds per year; they are equipped with linear motors with a speed rate up to 80 metres per minute and mandrels achieving speed rates up to 30,000 rounds per minute; the result is a top-quality level of the final products.
The storage area consists of 150 working pallets, with six fixed posts for loading the components to be processed and unloading the ones already processed.

During the unmanned working shifts, a motorised system made up of two shuttles takes the pallets of raw parts and positions them into the CNC machining centres; inside these centres the raw parts are machined and the pallets with the finished parts are automatically carried back to the storage area.
1928 tools arranged in special stores are available for the machining of parts and components; by means of a shuttle called “Super tools”, the tools are automatically conveyed into one of the 12 CNC machining centres in accordance with the production schedules.