Today we are going to present a successful case study from BERMA Macchine, a company specialized in the design and manufacture of machinery and equipment for industrial marking and identification.
In brief, two factors have been the keys to achieve this successful experience and beat the competitors:
- The technical skills that have allowed BERMA Macchine to design a marking process completely integrated within the client’s company processes;
- The ability to customize the marking solution for the client, which was made possible by Berma Macchine’s strategic choice to develop the laser machine management software in-house.
The customer, MZ Aspiratori from Budrio, within Bologna’s area (Italy), is among the leaders of industrial fans manufacturer on the European market.
We are going now to ask some questions to Mr Fabrizio Bergamini, owner of BERMA MACCHINE. He will help us to understand in more details the key elements that made the client choosing the solution created by BERMA Macchine.
What was the challenging request that the client posed to BERMA Macchine?
BERMA Macchine has been asked for a “multitask” solution able to: simplifying the marking process, making it more flexible, increasing efficiency of the process, reducing waste and errors if compared with the manual marking system.
What were the main problems to be solved?
To fully understand how challenging our client’s requirements were, let’s have a look at the marking system they were using before. MZ used to mark all the product ID data and the CE trademark, on plates previously screen-printed and complete of the company logo.
It should also be considered that MZ has a wide range of products requiring marking and a wide customer portfolio that requires frequent changes to the identification plates of the products. Furthermore, on some occasions, regulatory changes also require the modification of the products ID data.
Therefore, because of these several changes, our client had to waste regularly part of the screen-printed plates, because become disused.
Our client also asked us to:
- Simplify the management of the graphic layouts – since MZ Aspiratori had a high number of these – because, in addition to its own brand products, MZ also develops components as subcontractor and these ones must be marked with third parties’ logo.
- Make the marking process more efficient and faster for a total of 40,000 – 50,000 plates a year;
- Enable a customized management of the information to be marked on the plates, so that these data can be edited in real time, in order to be adaptable to the requirements of both clients and regulations;
- Reduce errors and simplify the plates marking management process, allowing data and information to be imported directly from the company’s project management software;
- Guarantee a prompt and quick assistance.
What solutions did you propose? What are the factors that permitted BERMA Macchine to get the job order?
Berma Macchine has designed a customised laser marker that allows to:
- Interact with the client’s company database and upload the information to be marked onto the plates, directly from the project management software of the client;
- Customize each plate thanks to a user interface tailor-made for the client; this solution was made possible by BERMA Macchine which designed and developed its own laser marker software;
- Make the marking process more efficient and faster, also thanks to a loader that can handle a great number of blank standard plates of the same type;
- Reduce waste and optimise costs; in fact, the solution implemented by BERMA Macchine offers the possibility to mark plates when needed, completely eliminating the need to keep a stock of screenprinted plates, which was necessary with the marking system previously used by the client.
Berma Macchine has managed to get the order from the Client, thanks to this complete and integrated solution, which is one-of-a-kind on the market and has a very competitive price.
What advantages has the client got by entrusting this job order to Berma Macchine?
The main advantages obtained by our client can be summarized as follows:
- Reduction of the production costs of the product identification plates, due to both the increased speed in the preparation and manufacture of the plates, and the reduction of waste plates;
- Drastic increase in the flexibility of the ID plate marking process due to customization of user interfaces and their connection with the client’s project management software;
- Simplification of the marking process and its complete integration with the client’s corporate processes.
Let’s now listen Andrea Zanardi, owner of the Client company MZ, explaining the problems that had to be solved and the added value produced by the marking solution designed by Berma Macchine.
Courtesy of MZ Aspiratori
In general, what are the peculiarities of Berma Macchine?
The characteristics that our customers recognize in BERMA are:
- Reliability of the industrial markers;
- User-friendly and customizable interface;
- Customization of the marking solution thanks to a proprietary management software which is completely customizable;
- Wide range of products including laser and dot peen, benchtop, portable and integrable;
- Experience: since 1974 the company is specialised in designing and manufacturing of markers for industrial use;
- Technical assistance and repairs within 48 hours from the reception of the industrial marker. It is also available the remote assistance in order to be close to the farthest client;
- On-site assistance everywhere in the world, on specific request of the Client;
- Quick delivery of micro-percussion machines, always available in stock;
- 100% respect of the delivery time agreed with the client.
In conclusion, what are the next targets of BERMA Macchine?
The next targets will be the following:
- strengthen the presence of our brand in Europe, Asia and South America;
- combine our experience of over 40 years and the research of innovative solutions in the design and construction of markers for industrial use;
- expand furtherly our range of products (industrial laser marking and micro – percussion, benchtop, portable and integration), trying to give a better answer to the various customer requests;
- reach abroad, the same standards (that BERMA has in Italy) in technical assistance and repairs of industrial markers;
- accelerate furtherly the time for customization of marking solutions.
