Quality as a method: FPT's new dual-column RONIN production line
In the world of precision engineering, credibility, as we know, is built on the ground through daily experience. FPT has always believed that to truly improve a technology, you must live it, testing its limits and potential within your own production department. The new in-house plant is proof of this philosophy: a line consisting of two Ronin horizontal milling machines, designed to streamline the machining processes for the main structures of FPT products.
Turning limits into opportunities
The installation of this plant is part of a machine fleet renewal process started in 2018, born from a specific need: the growth in size and geometric complexity of the parts to be machined.
The machining requirements for the main structures of our products have grown over time: larger parts and more complex geometries required systems with wide work areas that allowed for fast clamping times and effective tool change cycles. Otherwise, these factors would have become a limit to the growth of our production capacity.
Manuel Borin, COO, FPT Industrie
The technical challenge was ambitious: integrating new high-performance machines into an existing layout originally designed for different morphologies. A major obstacle was the original foundation, which was significantly lower than the requirements for the new equipment. Instead of proceeding with invasive demolitions, the engineering department chose to preserve the existing structural anchorage, designing a dedicated riser to allow the table, extension, and base to function as a single rigid unit. The solution came from the synergy between FPT's field experience and process engineering.
The challenge was not only to install new machines, but to do so in an existing plant, which was originally designed for machines with different morphologies. Our technical office, thanks to the experience of hundreds of installations and by talking with colleagues on the shop floor, increased the plant's productivity, turning the limit into an opportunity and making the system even more productive.
Gianprimo Squizzato, Sales Engineering Director, FPT Industrie
Seamless production and simultaneous setup
Today, the plant boasts 4 work zones, made dynamic and secure by the patented D-FENCE system. This solution uses a sensor-assisted mobile barrier to modulate the work area based on part size. The system constantly coordinates its position with the machine logic, allowing the operator to safely perform setup, loading, or unloading in one area while machining continues in the other.
This system guarantees us higher plant productivity while always ensuring a safe zone for the operator. The work area adapts to the different characteristics and needs of the piece to be machined, making the entire production cycle much more fluid and stable.
Manuel Borin, COO, FPT Industrie
MARES, the digital brain of production
MARES, FPT's proprietary digital intelligence platform, coordinates the complexity of this new system, serving as the workshop's central nervous system.
From the production programming center, we load the pieces to be machined. The system dispatches them to the machines via MARES, which collects data, monitors times, and controls consumption, making the process more predictable, traceable, and easier to optimize.
Manuel Borin, COO, FPT Industrie
Thanks to advanced sensor technology, MARES also allows for the successful management of unmanned machining operations, both during roughing and finishing.
Energy efficiency and sustainability
The investment introduces a higher level of flexible automation aimed at eliminating downtime through a 500-station tool magazine, served by a robot on a 30-meter modular track. Currently dedicated to the two Ronin machines but already prepared for future expansions, the system optimizes operational cycles: the robot constantly tracks the movement of the machines and performs tool changes in any position they are in, preventing them from interrupting the machining cycle to return to a fixed point. With a load capacity of up to 100 kg (equivalent to two 50 kg tools with a maximum diameter of 250 mm and a length of 600 mm), the robot also handles tool identification and cleaning autonomously. Total traceability and tool lifecycle monitoring are guaranteed by an integrated Balluff system, while flow management -including the unloading of worn or broken tools -takes place via a dedicated pick & drop station, protected by an automatic recovery system in the event of a power outage.
This structural efficiency is coupled with a rigorous focus on environmental impact, centered on eliminating energy waste during idle cycles.
Thanks to the new generation of drives and the intelligent management of Green Mode, the plant automatically reduces power consumption when the machine is not engaged in machining. At the same time, it maintains components in a state of constant readiness, ensuring an immediate and safe return to full productivity as soon as required. Since implementing Green Mode, the system has achieved an electricity saving between 15% and 20%.
Quality as a method
In short, this plant is the tangible manifestation of the FPT working method: a promise of quality born from responsibility and daily work.
The attention we put into our production processes is the same that can be found in the products we deliver to our customers. Because at FPT, we truly believe in our solutions. We build them, we use them, we test them — and that is how quality takes shape. First in our own home, and then in our customers' workshops.
Manuel Borin, COO, FPT Industrie
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