Ignasi Zorita: “We are reactive in adapting to our customers’ needs”

Ignasi Zorita, general manager of STAM Spain Valle Perfiladoras, analyses the current context of the automotive industry with machine tool and capital goods suppliers. Lea esta entrevista en castellano.

Interview published in AutoRevista 2.402

AutoRevista.- What ongoing projects for the automotive sector does STAM Valle Perfiladoras have in the Iberian Peninsula and other regions? 

Ignasi Zorita.- We are currently working on automotive projects under confidentiality contract not only for the Iberian Peninsula, but also for other areas of the world. In some cases, our customers, the Tier 1s, are going to buy machinery in China and Turkey with the consequent drop in quality and delivery delays, sometimes very significant. We are being asked more for tooling than for capital goods, so we are diversifying into industries such as aviation, where we are taking important steps. The long-term growth possibilities of automotive are an absolute mystery. The misguided strategy, a shot in the foot, of the EU regarding the electric vehicle, the semi-recessionary situation in countries like Germany, the agreements of European OEMs with China and the entry of Chinese vehicles into Europe produce this sense of unknown and uncertainty. In our case, automotive is not our core business, as it represents 10 or 15%. In terms of machine tools for the automotive industry, the future is uncertain.

AR.- How do profiling and cutting technologies continue to evolve technologically and how do you incorporate advances in digitalisation and sustainability? 

I.Z.- We are reactive because our customers in the automotive industry are very conditioned at an economic level, so it is difficult for them to innovate in certain processes. In Industry 4.0 we can implement practically everything, as we are doing in areas such as aviation, replacing die-cutting processes with profiling solutions, with substantial improvements not only in productivity, but also tripling the quality of the process. In addition, we achieve much more precise, reliable, repeatable and predictive solutions. In the automotive sector, depending on how far you want to go with the project, we can respond to all kinds of needs.

AR.- What challenges does the evolution towards lighter, safer and more sustainable electric vehicles pose for a company like STAM Valle Perfiladoras?

I.Z.- In terms of structure, the car has not changed in terms of specifications. As we work on chassis-related areas of the vehicle, the parts are more or less the same, bumpers, reinforcements... using the same materials that are improving in properties. There are new profiles in the battery sector that we can also produce. We are seeing increased complexity in designs, which increases the cost of the company's work teams. Often, the projects that emerge from design centers don't take into account the requirements of industrialization. Computer design processes do not always have an adequate translation to manufacturing. This is a problem that we detect more in Europe, less in the United States where they are more pragmatic and even less in China.

AR.- How does STAM Valle Perfiladoras take advantage of the synergies between the automotive industry and other industrial sectors in which it is present?

I.Z.- The automotive industry can feed off other sectors. I find that Tier 1, large, large corporations, are very compartmentalised, in closed silos, so sometimes the information is not transversal. Sometimes, the objectives of the different departments are not aligned and I think they can optimise more the coordination and logistics of industrial processes. Nevertheless, we study all the offers we receive and the feasibility for their realisation, which, in recent months, we have been receiving with time lags of more than a year in many cases.