Top Automazioni brought cutting in house, with an 8 kW PLUS and a twin-tower storage system
Until 2023 Top Automazioni bought its sheet metal cutting outside. Today it does the job in house, with an 8 kW laser and a twin-tower automatic storage system. Painted yellow, like everything else there.
Bruno Bargellini founded Top Automazioni and still runs it. The company builds automatic bar feeders for CNC lathes and robotic automation, and he built his very first bar feeder himself, back in the seventies, because the one he had ordered never showed up. He told us how you get to making everything in house, and why the machine and the storage system should be bought together.
Who Top Automazioni are
Top Automazioni Srl designs and builds automatic bar feeders for CNC lathes and robotic automation for industry. According to the figures Bruno Bargellini gave us, the company now builds more than 130 bar feeders a month and exports them worldwide.
The first bar feeder, built out of necessity
The story starts in the seventies, when the company was still called Bargellini Bruno Torneria Automatica. A bar feeder he had ordered was late, production was waiting, so Bargellini decided to build one: «I made a virtue of necessity: I built my first bar feeder on my own.»
In 2000 Top Automazioni was founded, with its first patented bar feeder, the X File, able to set itself up in 90 seconds when the market average was three to four hours. That is the step that changed the scale of the company.
From turning to robotics
After the pandemic Top Automazioni added industrial robotics, and made speed the point: «We started building robots with a three-day lead time. In one year we sold 250 of them.»
Bruno's two sons are in the company today, one in sales and one on the shop floor. The second generation is already in, and you can hear it in the way investment gets discussed: not as an expense, but as another piece of a structure being built.
Why they chose Cutlite Penta: the visit to Prato
In 2023 Top Automazioni decided to bring cutting inside the company. Before choosing, they assessed several suppliers, then went to see the plant in Prato.
«The turning point came when we visited the plant in Prato. Cutlite Penta gave us confidence and professionalism from the very start», Bargellini says. «Andrea Giolli, Automation Sales Manager, inspired trust. And around here, Cutlite Penta and Nexam systems are a byword for reliability.»
Then there is a detail that is not a detail: machine and storage system were painted in Top Automazioni's corporate yellow. That is not decoration, it is consistency: anyone walking into that shop sees a system that looks designed for the place.
Cutting in house: what changes when you stop buying it outside
Before the laser, an outside supplier cut the sheet. The stated goal was vertical integration: running the whole process internally, from raw material to finished part. Today the site holds:
- lathes and machining centers
- the laser cutting system with its automatic storage
- a second automatic store for round stock
- assembly of the bar feeders and the robots
The result is that fabrication work that used to leave the company now stays inside, with the margin that comes with it and no dependence on someone else's lead time. The only limit, Bargellini says with a laugh, is the height of the buildings: «Only eight meters, otherwise we would have gone higher!»
The dream was a fully vertical company, where everything is made in house. Today we have done it.
How the system is configured, and what thicknesses it runs
The machine is an 8 kW PLUS, paired with a twin-tower automatic storage system. The working numbers are these:
- 15 mm thickness for the base plates, which is the current production
- the storage system is configured to handle plate up to 25 mm, with future work in mind
- on stainless steel the work is thin, between 2 and 3 mm
It is a configuration built around a known, repeating workload, with room to grow designed in from the start. That is the right way to buy a storage system: on tomorrow's production, not today's, because the structure cannot be widened afterwards.
The automatic storage: the part that changes the working day
On the storage system Bargellini is blunt: «For us the automatic store is essential. It works when it is needed, even until midnight.»
The system stores and moves the sheet and brings it to the laser without anyone lifting it with the overhead crane. That lets the machine run at hours when nobody is on the floor, with the active and passive safety systems that come with the installation. Meanwhile the material stays tracked and in order.
The automation is designed and built by NEXAM, and for Bargellini that is the point: «It was the best thing they could have done: having a single point of contact removes every grey area.» Machine and storage are born together, they talk to each other from day one, and there is one service organization behind both.
«The eye wants its share»
One theme came back several times during this visit, and it is not a technical one: order. «The eye wants its share: a clean company communicates efficiency at first glance», Bargellini says. «I care a lot about the image of the company: a customer should sense the precision as soon as he walks into the shop.»
Which brings us to something he told us that we report because it is useful to the reader: «If I had known you could integrate a scrap evacuator, I would have put it in straight away.» The option exists and can be built into the project, but it has to be asked for early: afterwards, on an installed system, it is a different job. If your shop has to stay clean without stopping the laser, put it on the table at the first meeting.
Advice from someone who has done it
«We are fully satisfied with the investment. Today we produce in house what we used to outsource», Bargellini concludes. And the advice he gives anyone weighing it up is a single, very practical one.
My advice to anyone about to invest is to buy the machine and the storage system together: the return is real and immediate.
Frequently asked questions
Which Cutlite Penta system did Top Automazioni install?
An 8 kW PLUS laser cutting machine paired with a NEXAM twin-tower automatic storage system, both painted in Top Automazioni's corporate yellow. The system was chosen in 2023 to bring sheet metal cutting in house, work that had previously gone to an outside supplier.
What thicknesses does an 8 kW laser like this one run?
At Top Automazioni current production sits at 15 mm thickness for base plates, while stainless steel work runs between 2 and 3 mm. The storage system was configured to handle plate up to 25 mm, with future work in mind.
Is it worth buying the laser and the automatic storage together?
That is the advice Bruno Bargellini gives, having done it: buy machine and storage in the same project. The two are born integrated, share a single point of contact and one service organization, and the storage lets the laser run at unattended hours. Adding automation later is possible, but it costs more time and more adaptation.
What does the automatic storage do while the laser is cutting?
It picks the sheet from the tower, brings it onto the machine table and takes the cut material away, with no operator and no overhead crane. Supervision software manages quantities and material records, so stock stays under control. It is the part that makes continuous running possible even when nobody is on the floor.
Do you want to bring cutting inside your company?
Bring us your drawings and your material: cutting gets tested in our DEMO area in Prato, on your own parts. And the storage system gets designed together with the machine, not afterwards.
