Pietec Feinwerktechnik manufactures a wide range of metal components in a competitive global market. To boost productivity and quality, the company invested in a new grinding machine and a robotic parts-handling system.
Halfway between Kassel and Dortmund, at the Bad Wünnenberg-Haaren interchange, lies the headquarters of Pietec Feinwerktechnik. As a specialist in even the most challenging metalworking applications, the company enjoys an excellent reputation among its clients. Christoph Piepenbrock is a busy man. No wonder, since he runs, together with his father Reinhard, a company that is highly sought-after and successful in the industry: Pietec Feinwerktechnik.
The contract manufacturer produces high-quality individual parts and assemblies according to its customers’ specifications and requirements. Pietec’s products can be found in white goods, electrical systems, and control cabinets, as well as in custom machine building, medical technology, and the plumbing sector, to name just a few market segments.
Expanded range
“Our range of services has grown over the decades in line with our customers’ needs and is now quite extensive,” says Christoph Piepenbrock. “This versatility means we’re not limited to specific industries. Anyone who needs a precision-machined metal component—for whatever purpose—is usually in the right place with us.”
Reinhard Piepenbrock founded the company in 1992 in Paderborn, a half-hour drive from its current headquarters. At the time, the company was still operating out of rented space. And it seems he had the proverbial “luck of the hardworking” right from the start: Just four years after its founding, Pietec—now with a staff of 17—moved into its own facilities in Bad Wünnenberg-Haaren.
Today, the company operates several production halls and, with approximately 130 employees, processes workpieces made of steel, stainless steel, aluminum, and galvanized sheet metal. The installed machines are capable of processing components up to three meters long and one and a half meters wide—typically from sheets between 0.5 and 1.5 millimeters thick. They are cut to size using a flatbed laser or a coordinate punching machine.
Clean deburring is required
In both cases, it is necessary to deburr the workpieces. This is not only to prevent injuries from the burrs, which can sometimes be very sharp, but also to prepare the surface for coating or to facilitate further processing. Not to mention that a cleanly deburred workpiece simply looks more appealing.
After Pietec’s first deburring machine had been in service for two decades, the two managing directors decided in 2021 that it was time to consider purchasing a new machine. “In April 2024, we finally put our new Weber machine into operation; by then, its predecessor had been in service for a good 20 years,” recalls Christoph Piepenbrock.
A key requirement for the new system was the move toward automation. “We searched long and hard and ultimately chose Weber, primarily because their machine can be combined with an autonomous unloading cell. A key factor for us was that Weber offers this combination virtually straight from the factory—so we were able to avoid lengthy adjustments from the outset.”
Robotic cell significantly reduces the workload
Since then, the robot-controlled removal of the deburred workpieces alone has significantly reduced the workload on machine operators and sped up the processing, as Christoph Piepenbrock explains. “Before, we either needed two employees at the machine, or one had to constantly run back and forth between loading and unloading. As a result, the whole process now runs twice as fast with just one employee as it did before automation.”
One particularly helpful feature is that the robot operates without the need for teaching: a 2D vision system scans the workpiece, captures its geometry, and automatically calculates the optimal gripping point. The robot then picks up the workpiece using a vacuum gripper or a magnetic gripper. Even sheet metal parts with cutouts or holes are no problem.
“Teaching the robot would make little sense. We process around 6,000 different components with varying geometries, about half of which go through the deburring system. Automation only achieves the desired effect if the robot can recognize and pick up the parts on its own.”
Since April 2024, Pietec has been using the HS-4-1000 automation system and the Weber PT-1100 DP6R2 deburring machine — featuring a 1,100-millimeter working width, planetary heads (P6), and a multi-rotation brush (R2). “The planetary heads are perfect for us because their horizontally rotating brushes cause minimal wear on the conveyor belt. And the rotating brushes are ideal for processing components that have already been formed by the coordinate punching machines. This combination is just right for us.”
(ZH) User very satisfied
Pietec has now processed well over a million parts using its Weber machine. “We’re very satisfied with it—both the deburring machine and the automation system. It’s excellent, solid German engineering. What more could you ask for?”
Meanwhile, Christoph and Reinhard Piepenbrock are working with the experts at Weber on two additional projects to make operations at their facility even more efficient. “We’re considering the possibility of automating the loading of our deburring machine in the future. We’re also looking into the possibility of fully automating the loading of our stud welding machine during production.”
For the automation of the stud welding system, the use of a camera-based vision system with 3D scanning is being considered; this system identifies the components based on stored CAD data and automatically determines suitable gripping points. As with the deburring system, the goal is to minimize manual teaching of the automation. The key challenge here is to account for the placement of the studs that have not yet been welded on before the robot grasps the workpiece, so that it can grasp the workpiece at the same location after the studs have been applied without colliding with them.
The handling system of the stud welding machine uses vacuum grippers and can flexibly handle workpieces of various shapes up to 700 x 700 millimeters in size and weighing up to 20 kilograms.
The reason for further automation at Pietec is obvious. “We are a medium-sized family-owned company based in Germany that faces globalization and international competition. This is only possible with the highest quality and the greatest possible efficiency. And we can only achieve that with good, reliable employees and a machine park that is just as reliable.”
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