Fondmetal

Established in the early ‘70s by Gabriele Rumi, Fondmetal specializes in metal casting on a subcontracting basis, a family tradition that can be traced back to 1908.

The 1980 the company branched out into its own production of alloy wheels, initially just a few units, but four years later, in the wake of considerable success, this line accounted for 100% of Fondmetal’s entire production. The Fondmetal Group came into being in 1993, following the acquisition of Fondmetal Technologies (now FondTech), with its wind tunnel. Radius A.A.T., which specializes in top-of-the-range wheels, joined the group in 1997. In 2004, the group acquired another high-tech factory, Aerolab, which had its own latest-generation wind tunnel, which could operate in synergy with FondTech.

The group reached a major historical and strategic milestone when it entered Formula 1, with the foundation of Fondmetal F.1 (1989-1992), followed by acquisition of the Minardi team (1996-2000).

The Group now has a total workforce of 190 and the capacity to produce over one million wheels for the main vehicle manufacturers.

As part of its continuous improvement campaign, Fondmetal, too, opted for the PRD+ module in the STAIN+ suite for data collection and production management in all departments.

Fondmetal’s president Stefano Rumi explains why STAIN is the ideal partner for achieving a strategic increase in competitiveness. “Of course – says Rumi – we want faster and faster cars, with increasingly accurate production processes, but we also need to include instruments that provide us with details of production with the same speed and accuracy as our products in order to discover all the hidden costs in our production processes that we can’t eliminate because we haven’t got the information to make them visible.”

STAIN+ technology, which is easy and intuitive for the operator, offers the following advantages in terms of field data collection:

• Automatic relaying from plant and machinery.

• Real-time availability to guarantee prompt responses to the various functions.

• Comprehensive analysis to allow a full understanding of the various phenomena and the implementation of corrective and preventive actions to ensure processes continue to comply with the standards.

• Sharing with all functions, allowing company-wide analysis of all indicators and cockpits.

Fondmetal’s Stain project was developed in the following areas:

• The foundry, with numerous presses for making blank wheels and automatic recording of tooling and downtimes.

• Blank control stations, interfaced with the system for X-raying each blank for automatic acquisition of the number and type of non-conformities in view of process optimisation.

• The mechanical workshop, with lathes, milling machines, drilling machines and fully automated centres for finishing the alloy rims, and direct operator determination of causes of rejects via an easy-to-use ergonomic keypad.

• The finished wheel tubeless test bay.

• The paintshop.

• The packaging department, with computerized reject cause identification allowing non-conformity analysis.

The economic and organisational improvements achieved using STAIN solutions provide numerous major advantages, including the following:

• Automatic recording of times and numbers of OK parts and rejects, with accurate costing at each stage.

• Reutilisation for other tasks of human resources previously used for manual production processes.

• Total elimination of transcription errors and omissions as field production reports no longer need to be compiled by hand.

• Real-time updating of work progress, giving optimised scheduling and reduced delays in delivery.

• Recovery of financial resources and enhanced efficiency in the various departments monitored.

• Increased awareness of global company indicators by heads of department.

• Shorter stoppages thanks to an accurate identification of causes.

• Accurate and prompt recording of rejects by cause and field checks to enhance product quality.