S.A. Eredi Gnutti Metalli

S.A. Eredi Gnutti Metalli is a leading Brescia-based wire drawing mill that specializes in the production of brass bars and rolled sections, and copper rolled sections for various sectors (taps and fittings, pipes and fittings, handles, building construction, heating and electrics).

The company commissioned STAIN to develop a system for the real-time control of incoming scrap, scrap sampling, raw material warehouse management, and wire drawing process and production control.

A detailed analysis of any production process that converts scrap into finished products (in steel mills, wire mills and foundries) shows that the raw material is one of the main cost items in terms of incidence on the sold product.

It is not a contradiction in terms to state that scrap is the “fuel” that drives all the engines in the metallurgical industry, a fuel that has had a considerable effect on the cost of the end product, considering the price trend for raw materials in recent years.

So it is extremely important to control in real time the entry of all incoming raw materials, the grade of each load consigned and the exact stocks of each type of scrap.

As part of its continuous improvement policy, S.A. Eredi Gnutti Metalli set itself the strategic target of developing the technology and organisation required to computerized all scrap flows, undoubtedly the main cost item in the whole production process.

Since foundry productivity and product quality depend on the chemical and physical qualities of the scrap used, it is very important to have real-time control of each incoming lorry, sampling of the features of the scrap delivered and the exact stocks of each type.

After conducting a thorough technical survey and completing the vital stage of analysis and design with STAIN, the company decided to make use of our experience and developed a solution based on the MILL+ suite’s RTM framework for handling scrap from incoming vehicles, automatically acquiring the weight of the load and a photograph of the vehicle, and automating all scrap sampling procedures.

We asked Ferruccio Gnutti, project manager at Eredi Gnutti Metalli, to describe the flow of paper documents required before the process was computerized.

“Before adopting STAIN’s solution, this was done by compiling an Inward Sheet entirely by hand with details required for tracking the material during the various process stages. When the vehicle arrived at the weighbridge, the operator filled in the transport data by hand and gave a copy of the form to the driver, who proceeded to the checkpoint. Here, another operator wrote down more information and sent the lorry to the unloading area, where the sampler identified the material using the hand-compiled document. The scrap then underwent chemical and physical analysis, and all the results were written down on the relevant form, which was sent to the offices for stock updating.”

This meant that all the hand-written details were subject to compiling errors, were much slower than the actual material flow and required laborious work on the part of the operators for statistical processing, supply monitoring and visibility of the status of all inward batches and stocks.

STAIN solutions succeeded in achieving the following targets:

• Real-time control of all entries via automatic acquisition of the weight and a photograph of each vehicle at all process stages (determination of initial laden weight, laden weight check, unladen tare check, unladen vehicle exit) to control the tracking of each consignment.

• Integration on a single platform of all paper records, giving all company functions real-time visibility of the status of all consignments and stocks.

• Statistical supplier analysis based on the results of the automatic chemical and physical analyses acquired automatically by the instrumentation and associated automatically with each consignment.

• Relaying of automatically acquired significant parameters to all office PCs, thus eliminating all paperwork.

• Elimination of all transcription errors and costly data realignment.

• Improved control of consistency between ordered and consigned materials thanks to the real-time availability of accurate data.

• Computerized management and tracking of raw material non-conformities (differences in terms of weight loss and analysis) to enable actual field parameters to be recorded and rendered visible at each stage of the incoming goods acceptance process.

• Integration with the management system for automatic transmission of scrap consignments, with control parameters for purchase order execution.

The technological architecture used is based on a network of fixed PC stations, wireless terminals for the samplers, instrumentation for conducting chemical and physical tests on scrap samples and TV camera for acquiring the number plate and status of each transport at the raw material flow checkpoints.

Thanks to the STAIN solution, all paperwork was eliminated within a month of installation, giving the following major technological, organisational and economic advantages:

• Ease of use by field operators thanks to an accurate and detailed analysis of flows and processes.

• Full management of all regular flows and exceptions, which were previously resolved in a non-standardized and uncontrolled way.

• Sharp reduction in transcription errors thanks to immediate improvements in efficiency due to the elimination of all low-value activities, which required collecting  information from diversified sources to remedy errors generated several days previously.

• Real-time availability of a database of statistical reports on scrap supplies by quality, weigh loss reason, correspondence of declared and verified data for each supplier, and compliance with supply conditions for each material, supplier, quantity and so on.

• Tracking of all incoming lorries and automatic acquisition of photographs documenting the entry and exit date/time, gross and net weights, and delivered material status.

• Accuracy of contracted quantities thanks to excess reporting even before the lorry is weighed.

• Considerable reduction in material storage times, giving clear advantages in terms of warehouse logistics and recovery of financial resources.

• Rigorous adoption of sampling and control procedures, and objective evidence of the operators handling all associated operations.