Italian steel mill, POMINI Long Rolling Mills, improves operations with BricsCAD®’s extensive interoperability

POMINI Long Rolling Mills is a steel-parts fabricator operating a highly modern and digitized mill near Milan, Italy. They boast a history spanning over 100 years, having recently become an independent company following several years of ownership by Siemens and Mitsubishi.

The Challenge

After becoming an independent company in 2021, the management team set out on an ambitious project to streamline operations and enhance the business’s profitability. Now, as a smaller agile company, they have the autonomy to select software solutions that best match their needs.

The IT team reviewed their CAD software solutions as part of the efficiency initiative. Having previously been a Siemens company, they inherited the Siemens design software NX, used CAD software from various vendors and would receive files from their suppliers and customers that were created in yet more file formats.

They also had a multi-disciplined team that included civil, structural and design engineers. As such they needed an adaptable solution that could meet all their needs, including running third-party applications, such as ESApro. On top of their CAD solution, they needed to integrate their Product Data Management (PDM) software to efficiently manage external suppliers. In all, having a solution with high levels of interoperability was a key requirement to adopting any new software.

The Solution

The IT team reviewed a total of six alternative CAD products. They shortlisted these products based on cost, familiarity to their existing solutions, the flexibility of working in any country, and the ability to smoothly open and manage their existing drawings.

POMINI Long Rolling Mill’s on-site project engineers were the beta testers, working worldwide on complex civil and structural projects. Umberto Verga, Head of Product and Plant Engineering said:

“While trialling BricsCAD®, studying the possibilities of the software, we found a number of ways that the software could improve what we do, with features for BIM, 3D modelling and Civil. We found that consistently combining everything into one system became one of the most important things for us.”

POMINI Long Rolling Mill’s management team selected BricsCAD® licences spanning the different product levels including BricsCAD® Lite, BricsCAD® Mechanical, BricsCAD® Ultimate, and Bricsys’ high-fidelity 3D CAD importer, Communicator. By taking this approach, they could provide their sales and on-site engineers access to CAD licences which had previously been too expensive.

Results

By providing software to all the sales and on-site teams, they have unlocked new levels of efficiency, reducing the need for error-prone on-site mark-ups on PDF and printouts, speeding up on-site installations and sales performance while also enabling design teams to focus on new work.

Umberto added:

“I was the strongest voice against changing software, I was concerned about the risk to the company. After testing with IT and all the departments, I was for it, and in the end, it worked! There are also opportunities for long-term business improvements from BricsCAD®’s existing and new functionality.”