ISPO 2012: NEW MILESTONE IN SKI PRODUCTION

Fill Machine Engineering Media Service February 2012   Industry/Machine Engineering/Sport Technology/Trade Fair   ISPO 2012: New milestone in ski production  The global market leader in ski production machines was a compelling attraction at the ISPO with integrated solutions for the production process.    At ISPO, the leading international sports trade fair held from 29 January to 1 February in Munich, Fill presented the intelligent interconnection and automation of ski production processes. The machine engineering experts impressed customers with integrated approaches during the course of their "profi talks." From the IT-supported "efficiency control cockpit" to automated steel edge measurement. Optimally coordinated with one another, Fill supplies individual total solutions from a single source.    Gurten/Munich, 02 February 2012 –  "Sustainable quality improvement at the highest levels of cost-effectiveness were the parameters that guided us in the intelligent interconnection of production processes," explains Wilhelm Rupertsberger, manager of the Plastics Competence Center at Fill. At the same time, the company focused on technology transfer and exploiting synergies. The Fill Plastics Competence Center operates very successfully in the international automotive, aerospace, and wind power industries. In these utterly high-tech fields, the company impresses time and again with sustainable innovations. The insights gained flow directly into the development of ski and snowboard production systems. Thanks to this expertise, Fill is capable of optimizing processes and opening new dimensions in ski construction.    Increase in productivity The intelligent software tool "efficiency control cockpit" supplies all the relevant production data in the areas of production optimization, maintenance tasks, quality assurance, and investment planning. This facilitates rapid determination of plant operating parameters (OEE/GAE, VDI availability, Pareto downtime analysis, etc.). Consequently, a stable increase in productivity is achieved. The complete plant history (instead of snapshot analyses) allows a greater focus on actual needs for action.   Customer-focused improvements The Fill edge measuring machine allows the edge angle to be measured fully automatically in a continuous process. The recorded data is passed directly to the upstream edge tuning machine. This reacts immediately to any necessary corrections, which are carried out fully automatically in the machining center. "As a result, it is possible to achieve standards of precision and quality previously unattainable in series production," reports Fill sport specialist Johann Hauser. The edge finish is improved with a customer focus during the production process itself. Perfectly tuned edges are of utmost importance for the handling and performance of skis and snowboards.   Corporate data Fill is a leading international machine and plant manufacturing company for diverse branches of industry. The family-owned business excels in the use of the latest technologies in management, communication, and production. Business operations encompass the fields of metal, plastics and wood for the automotive, aircraft, wind energy, sport and building industries. The company is the global market leader in ski and snowboard production machines and aluminum core removal technology. Andreas Fill and Wolfgang Rathner are joint CEOs of the company founded in 1966 that is still completely family-owned. The company became a public limited company (GmbH) in 1987, was certified in accordance with ISO 9001 in 1997, and now has more than 495 employees.   More information can be found at: www.fill.co.at   For further questions, please contact:   Kommhaus  Altausseer Strasse 220  8990 Bad Aussee, Austria Tel.: +43 3622 55344-0   Fax: +43 3622 55344-17  E-mail: presse@kommhaus.com