from Günter Kögel

At EuroBLECH Prima Power will launch its own product line of punching tools. These tools will be developed and produced by PASS Stanztechnik AG which will become the official OEM of Prima Power. We spoke with the managers of Prima Power and PASS about the background of this cooperation.

 

Why has Prima Power decided to offer it´s own tools?

Hannu Riihimäki: We were recently the only major manufacturer of punching machines without their own tool line and we were always confronted by our customers with the desire to get the machines and the tooling from one single source. Since three or four years now we are looking for a solution for this desire. We realized quickly that it makes no sense for us to produce the tools ourselves. This would have been too expensive and would have taken too much time.

And why did you pick PASS as your cooperation partner?

Hannu Riihimäki: We have been looking around in the market who would be the perfect partner for a cooperation with us and found PASS. Not only that PASS and Prima Power are a perfect match concerning their products, but also the strategically approach of the companies goes together very well: Our ideas of quality and how to achieve this quality are very similar. Prima Power does not built cheap machines, but systems that are produced with very high quality, are stable and very accurate – just like PASS tooling.

Mikko Fiskaali: In addition to that, the ability of PASS to punch very thick material with their tools fits perfectly to our machines. Our punch heads work with 30 tons – more than many other major punching machine manufacturers – and with the PASS tools we can implement the associated possibilities of that in a better way. We can reliably punch sheets up to 8 mm, while others reach only 4mm or even less. Even if customers want to punch thicker material than that, it is possible under certain conditions.
Our very stable O-frame has great advantages when punching thick material, since it won’t widen as much as the broadly used C-frame under large punching force.

Stefan Kraft: This I can fully confirm. We also have many customers that want to punch sheets of up to 6 mm or 8 mm - this requires very precise punching machines with a lot of force. On the other hand a lot of our customers punch very thin material – therefore they need machines with extremely tight tolerances. Prima Power offers both and is therefore also for us the perfect partner.

Michael Bauer: We have seen the difference between punching machines from Prima Power and their competitors while we were developing our „Clean Cut“ tool. In general our „Clean Cut“ tool can be used on any thick-turret machine in order to get cuts without a disturbing nibble mark. In reality however, it is a different ball game. On some punching machines, that we have tested the tool on, the result of a clean cut was not even close. That was more of a „Horrible Cut“.
A huge difference with the Prima Power machines with which we have achieved the best results by far. When using the „Clean Cut“ tool it separates the wheat from the chaff concerning the stiffness and the precision of a thick turret punching machine.
This has proven that we are a perfect match, because our demands are very similar. In order to fully exploit the capabilities of our high-quality tools like the “Clean Cut” or our Multitool, it is necessary to have a high-quality machine, just like those produced by Prima Power. It simply makes no sense to put a high end tool that costs around 13.000 € in a cheep machine that costs 90.000 € and has a hard time to stay straight in line. That simply does not fit.

Pass Stanztechnik AG covers with its tools all different kinds of punching systems. Will there be tools that are exclusively for the cooperation with Prima Power?

Michael Bauer: They already exist. We have developed a special Multitool for Prima Power that can punch sheets with a thickness of up to 6 mm steel. As a comparison, others can only punch up to 1,5 mm steel. Also we will introduce a special “Thread forming” tool at the EuroBLECH, which will only be sold for Prima Power machines. Generally we see a great future for our new and only for Prima Power developed tools, which haven’t been existing in that form on the market yet and which could have never been realised without a cooperation with Prima Power.

Can you give us an example for that?

Michael Bauer: A very good example is our „Thread forming“ tool. Together with Prima Power we have developed a solution that was not on the market like this before. Today, without a close cooperation like the one we have, this wouldn’t have been possible and that’s how a cooperation should work: Our innovations support the machine sales of Prima Power and vice versa.

Mikko Fiskaali: Thread forming is a very interesting market for us, not only for new machines, because this solution can be retrofitted to existing machines.
Thread forming is also a very good example for Prima Power´s strategy to not only sell a pure punching machine but to sell a multi-purpose machine that has far-reaching automation capabilities in order to grow with our customers. Marking, thread forming, forming – we want to integrate everything that’s possible so that our customer can be more productive and reduce manual labour.

Michael Bauer: This is another good example why we fit together so well, because we at PASS want to integrate as many operations as possible in our tools in order to make our customers lives easier and more productive.

Is this cooperation effective for all tools and will all punching machines from Prima Power in the future be tooled up with PASS tooling from Finland directly?

Hannu Riihimäki: The cooperation covers all thick turret tools, including multitools and all special tools. To what extent new machines are going to be supplied with our tools is a local decision of each countries dealer and of each customer. There are some customers who work consistently with the tools of a different tool manufacturer and may continue to do so. However, many companies are already using the tools from different manufacturers today and those are the companies we want to show the significant benefits of our cooperation and recommend the use of our tools.

Michael Bauer: For the world market, Prima Power machines are going to be tooled up with PASS tooling directly in Finland. The only difference is going to be for the German speaking countries: It simply does not make any sense to send tooling with a weight of one hundred kilos and more to Finland, just to send it back with the machine to Germany, Austria or Switzerland. Therefore, we will send the tools directly from Creussen to these customers.

What is your expectet tool volume?

Michael Bauer: We see a huge potential, but it is currently not possible to predict how high the number of machine tool-up’s for Prima Power is going to be. Neither Prima Power has experience with tooling sales nor did we tool-up Prima Power machines in such a high volume.
Anyhow, our production is prepared for all eventualities. In recent years we have invested millions of Euros in our production and most recently we have bought a couple of more machines, in order to hold sufficient manufacturing capacity.

Mikko Fiskaali: Right now we do not exactly know how the new product line is going to be accepted. But we are sure that the share of our own tool line will increase constantly over the next years. We have a huge distribution network. Some of our distributors are currently working together with other tool manufacturers, but some are waiting desperately for our own tool line and are going to push our new product line very actively.

If you look five years ahead: What is the goal?

Michael Bauer: In five years, 60 or 70 percent of all delivered Prima Power punching machines should be equipped with PASS tools – and I am not unhappy if the number is higher. 100 percent, we will never reach.
There are customers that are so used to a certain tool manufacturer and they will stay with their supplier. But the closer we get to 100 percent, the better. The longer we work together, the more detailed know-how, in terms of tooling, is going to be transferred to the Prima Power employees and dealers and this is going to influence their contact with the customers. It will take some time, but ultimately it is always easier to offer a machine and the tooling as a package from a single source and as a global solution.

Hannu Riihimäki: We will grow together, I am firmly convinced. For us it was always a problem that we did not have a own tool line – now we got one, a very good one too. Previously it happened again and again that other machine producers got leads for new machine deals through tooling producers and we had to fight for the machine orders. This is over now: We can offer now the machine with the perfect tooling package included and therefore we can supply our customers with everything they need out of one hand. I see this as a great advantage for us.

If there is a new tool line for the EuroBLECH, is there also a matching new machine with it?

Mikko Fiskaali: We will also show something new on the machine side. The details are still a secret, but I can tell you this much: We are going to present the currently fastest punching / shearing machine in the world and I can only recommend everyone to see this machine at our booth.
Also with this machine we have decisive benefits from the cooperation with PASS, because if we increase the number of hits per minute, we have to have reliable tooling with a very high spring force. This is very important, and PASS has detected that. That’s why PASS, other that it’s competitors, always uses the strongest springs, which other companies only offer as a chargeable option for their high-performance tools. The standard spring force, that is available from PASS in every tool was more than enough for all our tests and that’s why also PASS, with it’s tooling knowledge has a significant role in ensuring that we can display at the EuroBLECH the fastest punching machine in the world.

www.primapower.com
www.pass-ag.com