The Piedmontese company Omlat is renowned worldwide as one of the major manufacturers of spindles and electrospindles with customized design, for special applications and several industrial sectors.
It was the 1940-year, when Salvatore Munnia established in Turin a small mechanical workshop for the production of spindle shafts for machine tools. Therefore, Omlat brand was born from the passion and the entrepreneurship of a young worker in the first years of the Second World War.
After 75 years, the Piedmont company continues its activity in its headquarters at Ceresole d’Alba, in Cuneo province, and it is renowned all over the world as one of the primary manufacturers of spindles and electrospindles designed for special applications and manifold industrial sectors.
«Starting as simple craft shop, Omlat has gradually widened its activity, over the years suiting the technological requests of the market – says Franco Giacone, President of Omlat – . During the war, we moved its headquarters from Turin to Cuneo area and successively we established Comett, a mechanical workshop with headquarters in the close Corneliano d’Alba and integral part of its business reality. The enterprise carries out in-house all necessary machining operations to produce the structural parts of its electrospindles ».
Omlat Group operates through two complementary productive factories, with state-of-the-art machine tools and machining centres but especially relying on a long consolidated know-how in the sector. Today it exports its products worldwide: tailor-made spindles and electrospindles for its customers, fruit of strictly Made in Italy manufacturing techniques and machining.
Electrospindles tailor-made for machines
«Each Omlat electrospindle is never a standard product but it is conceived with the customer that buys it – explains Maurizio Righetti, Omlat Sales & Marketing Executive -. Our brand is renowned both in Italy and abroad for the capability of manufacturing particular spindles, designed and developed according to the specific machining requirements of companies and of the machine tools using them. Besides, each Omlat product can be implemented and perfected according to customers’ future needs».
Skills that derive also from 75 years of experience and activity in the sector: «Working in manifold industrial fields, often very different one another, we could develop all those technical competences that today allow us to offer the most suitable spindle for any application sector ».
Currently Omlat counts in its catalogue about 7000 designs. It can supply highly customized electrospindles, of whatever typology and size. Products intended for milling, turning and grinding machining, on metals – like aluminium and steel – on wood, marble, glass, composite materials and special alloys, such as titanium and aeronautical aluminium.
«Thanks to the collaboration with our Corneliano factory, we can grant high quality and working efficiency to customers, in addition to very prompt response to their demands – adds Maurizio Righetti – . Our electrospindles are fully in-house manufactured, from the purchase of raw materials to the design and machining of components, up to the assembly, mounting and final testing».
The headquarters at Ceresole d’Alba are the venue of the Management of Omlat Group, sales and accounting offices, the technical office and the grinding, finishing, assembling and motor construction departments, a metrological room, the testing and logistic division and warehouses. In its turn, at a distance of about 15 km, Comett acts as a real primary manufacturing factory of the Group, relying on the operation of around thirty high-tech machine tools, including several NC machining centres that allow it to carry out in fast and efficient way any type of machining requested by the sister company Omlat.
Believing in innovation
At the base of Omlat’s operating philosophy there is an undisputable assumption: a machine tool is always expected to work with top performances in the shortest possible time. To obtain this result, it is necessary that it relies on high-tech spindles granting that plants operate with utmost precision, speed and working capability.
«The spindle is the machine core – explains the company’s sales and marketing manager -.The more performing and suitable it is for the machining processes to be executed, the more it allows companies to reach their productive targets. For this reason, we develop, directly with customers, solutions and products giving them the possibility of manufacturing technologically cutting-edge NC machine tools, able to manage more and more complex and complete machining».
Essential, then, is the possibility of relying on a skilled and reactive Research & Development department.
«Each request that we receive from customers is fruit of a new research, when they need either a new product or the development of one already existing, which must be improved, perfected and implemented – further explains Maurizio Righetti – . The activity of our R&D office allows us to design and to produce high-quality spindles, more and more performing and suitable for the changeable market requirements».
Not long ago, for instance, customers asked for spindles for targeted machining only to Omlat, for instance to turn or to mill. The demand for increasingly fast and flexible productions, however, has established new sales trends. «Currently there is a growing demand for electrospindles that can both turn and mill, to be mounted on multitasking CNC machining centres, allowing companies to satisfy a broader and broader machining range with the use of a single machine tool».
Ultra-complete after sale service
To satisfy customers’ needs more efficiently and quickly, Omlat has established a direct service workshop for the North and South America, at Elk Grove Village, in Illinois, United States.
«Our American service can provide fast answers and an even quicker after sale service to customers on the spot. We firmly believe in the importance of offering a timely and efficient support to the companies that use our spindles, wherever they are».
With an important characteristic: thanks to a long and diversified experience in the sector, Omlat technicians can also overhaul any kind of spindle and electrospindle, making them not only more efficient but with technical specifications that equal those of new products, under all respects.
For this reason, each overhauled spindle is also provided with a warranty certificate and is registered in Omlat archives with its specific identity card. A course that makes it traceable at any time and useful to get exhaustive information about its entire service life in case of maintenance or technical interventions.
Interpreting the market to grow
Omlat brand is present worldwide both with the direct sale of its products and indirectly, thanks to the machine tool manufacturers that mount its electrospindles and export their technology abroad.
«Our primary customers are located in Europe and, overseas, in the United States – explains Maurizio Righetti – . Besides, we are also present in Asia, with the direct sale of our products to local machine tool manufacturers, which more and more often try to buy high-quality Made in Italy products to be mounted on their machines».
Its main reference sectors are especially automotive and aeronautical industry but also the energy ambits and, last but not least, the wood working industry, where Omlat has been historically present.
«We are trying to consolidate our presence in market segments that we have been supplying for a long time, like the wood sector, where at present a sale recovery seems possible. We will not miss, then, the next exhibition Ligna in Germany – ends Maurizio Righetti -. With our participation at CIMT 2015 in China, we will try instead to expand even more extensively in the Countries of Asia and Far East, with the direct sale of our products, consolidating and creating new business opportunities. We took part in MECSPE exhibition in Parma as subcontractors, with our engineering company Comett, which addresses independently the subcontracting market and all those companies that need to execute high-precision mechanical machining on very particular parts. Besides, at the end of the year we will participate at EMO Exhibition in Milan to consolidate further our presence on the international market».
More and more performing and flexible
State-of-the-art Omlat electrospindles become more and more performing and able to machine various material typologies in highly flexible way. The HSK-A63 EVO model, for instance, features all the three technical characteristics that are usually demanded to Omlat by machine tool manufacturers and their users: high 100 kW power, high torque, in the order of 100 Nm, and high machining speed, up to a maximum of 30,000 rpm. All that in a small-size spindle. HSK-A63 EVO allows performing several machining operations, even highly different one another, such as roughing, heavy stock removal or precision finishing. Therefore, it can use a broad range of tools – explains Maurizio Righetti, Sales & marketing Executive Omlat. In conformity with our corporate philosophy, also this model is anyway a base product, from which it is possible to start to develop together with customers the most suitable solution for their production needs.
75 years of … special spindles
Omlat sprang from the entrepreneurial spirit of a young worker born in Switzerland, Salvatore Munnia, in 1911. Moving to Italy, he setups his small mechanical workshop in Turin, in 1940, in the first years of the Second World War. To limit the operational difficulties caused by the war, he moves to Ceresole d’Alba, in Cuneo province and, thanks to the use of some grinding machines, he works at the manufacturing of spindle shafts, gradually expanding his activity both in Italy and abroad. In the Fifties, with the rising demand for spindles by machine tool manufacturers, Omlat widens its factory with a new mounting and assembling department. In 1972, he establishes Comett, precision mechanical factory headquartered at Corneliano d’Alba, at about 15 km from the head office, which carries out all machining operations on structural electrospindle components. Today, after 75 years of activity, the Piedmont company is one of the main manufacturers of Made in Italy spindles and electrospindles, used in several applications and industrial sectors.