Fulpmes in Tyrol is home to Schmid OG: the family business is well positioned to offer its customers a variety of metalworking services. The company cuts, presses, punches, bends, paints and even forges. The cutting department has also been in-house for more than 10 years. Plasma technology from MicroStep was the starting signal, and in 2022 a compact laser cutting system rounded off the machine park for the time being.
© MicroStep Europe GmbH
Forging, bending, pressing, punching and more – more than 20 years ago, Gerhard Schmid took over a forge founded in 1910 in the Stubai Valley, around 20 km south of Innsbruck. Production has been continuously modernized and expanded in order to manufacture precise workpieces and series of the highest quality for customers from the mountain sports, automotive and tool industries. Particularly important here is the individual adjustment of all production parameters in order to achieve a result that precisely meets the customer’s requirements.
Investment in plasma and laser technology
In 2012, Schmid OG also decided to bring cutting in-house. After intensive research, the company came across MicroStep and decided to purchase a 2D plasma cutting system from the MasterCut series. Almost ten years later, the metalworking company decided to invest in a laser cutting system in order to meet the increasing demands for greater precision, particularly in the automotive industry. The two managing directors Gerhard Schmid and his daughter Marie-Theres Schöpf quickly decided that it should once again be a machine from MicroStep, and so the company commissioned a system from the MSF Compact series in February 2022.
“Where there’s planing, there’s chipping”
However, the demand for cutting thin sheets with ever more precise requirements, both for in-house cutting and for contract manufacturing, was steadily increasing. And so, just one year later, a further investment was needed to cope with the volume of orders. Due to the positive experience with the cutting systems already purchased, it quickly became clear to Schmid OG after a brief comparison with other manufacturers: it would be another laser system from MicroStep Europe. “Where there’s planing, there’s chipping – a problem can always occur and we know that we can rely on MicroStep Europe to help us straight away,” says Marie-Theres Schöpf, Managing Director of Schmid OG. “With other manufacturers, we didn’t know where the support was and whether or when someone would be able to help us if something went wrong.” After receiving advice from Area Sales Manager Alois Bergmann, the family business opted for an MSE SmartEL 2D laser cutting system with 8 kW laser power.
Two laser cutting systems for different requirements
Since mid-June 2024, the new laser cutting system has been in operation in the place where the plasma cutting system reliably performed its duties for many years – just a few steps away from the existing MSF Compact. The company cuts small parts with a material thickness of up to 5 mm on the compact 2D laser – larger components with a greater material thickness, especially for contract manufacturing, on the MSE SmartEL. Just one month after commissioning, the machine’s capacity utilization was already at around 70 percent, “especially in spring and autumn, we receive many orders from the agricultural industry, so we can expect a further increase in capacity utilization here,” says Schöpf. On the purchase of the new laser cutting system, she concludes: “Everything worked out great again. Even the fact that the delivery date could be brought forward – it is simply always very good communication”.
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