Bonfiglioli has launched its new electromobility production line in Forlì, Italy.

The new unit - covering an area of about 10,000 square meters - was built in 12 months, and is entirely dedicated to the production of electrical axles for powertrain and wheel drives of different sizes. In this case as well, Bonfiglioli has built this new facility with an environmentally-friendly approach, by implementing energy saving and generation measures, such as an A2 energy class building, full led lighting, a roof-top PV plant (self-consumption mode), as well as a compressors’ heat recovery system, all together contributing to yearly savings of approx. 1 MWh, equivalent to over 300 TCO₂

The additional building is completely integrated into the existing plant, which already produces approx. 300,000 products per year. With a total of 39,000 square meters dedicated to production, this facility already serves 200 customers in the construction, wind, agriculture, marine and logistics & intralogistics industries, with a wide product portfolio including yaw and pitch drives, wheel drives, track drives, slew drives and winch drives. 

“This new and innovative unit looks to the future and consolidates one of our main strategic pillars - the development of electromobility solutions - by leveraging the existing decade-old competence center we have in Forlì, focused on mobile equipment,” said Fausto Carboni, Bonfiglioli Group CEO.

“This expansion gives us the opportunity to better support our customers with innovative solutions for electrical and hybrid industrial and commercial vehicles. We decided to put the best of Industry 4.0 technology at our service, in order to create flexible processes, enhancing quality and productivity standards,” added Marco Cesari, mobility and wind industries business unit general manager.

The implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies developed through collaborative robots, AGV, sensors, machine vision systems, interactive working instruction systems, and full data connection systems, allows an extreme optimization of the entire production process. Innovative testing benches - such as the double vibration test - guarantee high quality product consistency.

Flexibility has also been one of the main criteria the assembly line was conceived with, resulting into the capability to manage 25,000 products per year, from 70 kg to 1,200 kg with reduced machine set-up times.