The power electronics sector is currently experiencing a very positive trend, with strong growth forecast for the coming years. Piciesse Elettronica Srl operates in this sector, providing engineering and production services for electronic boards:
an initial option identified by the company to meet the increase in demand was ‘insulated metal substrate’ (IMS) technology, which is currently only used for small-scale production. However, the requirement was to produce large batches at competitive costs and high quality in order to increase competitiveness on the global market and be able to participate in major contracts, such as those in the automotive sector.
This led to a request to Romagna Tech to participate, as a technical and scientific consultant, in the evaluation and validation of a new production process optimised for IMS technology, which would allow large-scale production.

The first step was to carry out an assessment aimed at gathering detailed information on the current IMS production cycle in order to identify its strengths and weaknesses, followed by an analysis of the characteristics of the production plant, the constraints in terms of layout and the existing systems. We then moved on to defining the expected characteristics of the new process, with a rough system architecture based on different blocks and the identification of its fundamental functions. Once the layout of the plant and the various elements involved had been redefined, four alternative scenarios were developed, characterised and compared, defined according to their impact on factors such as external logistics, internal storage capacity, production department areas, linearity of material flows and transitional costs. The scenario that best met Piciesse’s needs was then selected and, after a further stage of analysis and optimisation, the output was finalised, with a new layout, guidelines and a rough roadmap for the implementation of the revised IMS process.

The approach adopted and the knowledge employed by Romagna Tech can be applied to all production contexts consisting of different lines/stations, where it is necessary to optimise material flows and processes in general.