100 Years since the First Calender Always Looking For Quality First ——An interview with Mr. Mentasti Alessandro, Technical R&D Director of COMERIO ERCOLE

◎ Yang Honghui

Based on the technology more than 100 years, always been the forefront of innovation

COMERIO ERCOLE founded in 1885 in Italy, started its first phase in textile field, and developed the first rubber processing machineries afterward. In 1919, the company developed the first calender for textile cord rubberizing for a major Italian tire manufacturer. The time of 100 years passed, the first tire calender has been in operation so far.

“COMERIO ERCOLE is particularly proud to celebrate this important anniversary and announce that the centenary calender will be a new and innovative 4-roll calender, which will be installed in a worldwide top-player in tire manufacturing based in Germany.” Mr. Mentasti Alessandro said: “we have 14 international patents and a specialists team, we serve our customers with our company mission that always remains synonymous of Quality & Technology guarantee. In addition, COMERIO ERCOLE published a new book about calendering technology and Industry 4.0 process developments. ”

Mr. Mentasti Alessandro told us that their company has applied several patents for new products and developed technologies and they will continue to keep a strong commitment in mixing and calendering process.

He introduced three new innovations：(1) BIAS-CUT, the device consists of a fully automatic transversal cutting unit engineered, which to be arranged in a flexible process execution granting an adjustable angle in the range of 90°/60°. (2) ROLL MILL MATIC, it consists of a single stage mixing system “SSM” based on a fully automatic roll mixing equipment producing final compounds at low temperature. (3) HYDROPLUS, it consists of the integration of the fully hydraulic patented micrometric gap roll position HYDROGAP with the roll anti-collision device HYDROSAFE and the high-performance pressure/force control HYDRONIP combined with the revolutionary tool HYDROSHOT, in order to grant an absolute perfect lamination process and be able to control all the necessary coupling forces in fine micrometric conditions. 

It is believed that these products and technologies have unique advantages. All products and innovative solutions of COMERIO ERCOLE are based on industrial tests for a perfect matching with customer expectations including long-term reliability, great production scraps reduction, process flexibility and product performances increase. “Process reliability has been always our main target.” Mr. Mentasti Alessandro added.

Insist on joining hands with customers and developing the most appropriate performance solution together

COMERIO ERCOLE highly values R&D cooperation with technical universities as well as technical team from final users. The company insists on working with them together and providing scientific analysis standard. Also they share their applied researches and previous experimental development results with all customers of them. The company has been following the unique approach and constantly develop the most appropriate performance solution in order to meet real process needs from customers. 

COMERIO ERCOLE invests over 3% of total annual income in R&D. In the past five years, COMERIO ERCOLE patented 8 new high performance, new technologies and products for tire industry. “We have a qualified engineer team. We share our research results with our customers. We built a well-equipped laboratory with 350 m2 five years ago. All latest innovation and patented process have been tested in this laboratory. Also we did research and upgrade some tailored projects for our customers.” Mr. Mentasti Alessandro told us.

In addition, the company has a 4.0 remote control station to provide professional services for customers. “Today, we can integrate all functions above in a customized 4-roll calender configuration named HYDROPLUS®. Our final users can benefit from all related advantages including the constant and immediate remote survey through web connection on IOT (Internet of things) approach. It is a real solution for INDUSTRY 4.0 products.” Mr. Mentasti Alessandro said.
Valuing Chinese market, providing full life cycle and low-cost equipment

While talking about the Chinese market, Mr. Mentasti Alessandro said: “Some Chinese customers may not know much about the value of our equipment, they may only unilaterally feel that our equipment is more expensive. In fact, the investment on our equipment seems expensive at the beginning, but the cost of operation, maintenance, as well as failure rates are much lower than using other equipment. Actually our equipment is a money-saving equipment. ”

According to the introduction by Mr. Mentasti Alessandro, COMERIO ERCOLE not only produces tire calenders, but also produces other equipment, such as conveyor belt calenders, medical calenders, rubber sheet calenders, and tire liner calenders. In fact, CMOERIO ERCOLE’s calenders can be used in many sectors. “We greatly value Chinese market and Chinese customers. We will send sales staff even myself to China and introduce our advantages about our calender to main customers, so that more customers may accept and use our equipment. We are looking forward more Chinese customers visiting our plant in Italy, we would like to introduce our technologies and experiences and build a long-term cooperation relationship with Chinese customers. ”

Meeting future challenges, achieving intelligent rubber equipment

Mr. Mentasti Alessandro believes that higher process flexibility will be the largest challenge for tire industry in the coming five years. More and more process flexibility will be required to add more automation and data collection for a production line reliability, improve all related technical and technological performance such as thin materials thickness accuracy process, reduce power consumption, as well as improve safety process with remoted maintenance tools. COMERIO ERCOLE is strongly investing in all of these areas.

COMERIO ERCOLE has been using 3D platform to design equipment and production lines for a long time. The next challenge is to integrate the whole 3D model into a virtual reality platform (VR-Platform): using dedicated rendering operations to compile a 3D model in a virtual system simulator. “COMERIO ERCOLE built a new dedicated 4.0 training center, it is a very high performance workstation with special glasses and sensors. Customers are able to “visit” their virtual lines several months earlier than real construction. The perception is a complete immersion in a virtual world. ”

Mr. Mentasti Alessandro also introduced the company's new plan. COMERIO ERCOLE will start to build a new facility with additional 4.000 m2 , it is located near to their headquarter. The new facility will become a new technological hub for Industry 4.0 solutions. This new hub will integrate a new electronic and robotic engineering team to realize more innovations and meet more challenges. In COMERIO ERCOLE plant, a brand new laboratory has been opened recently, customers may experience their innovation about fully hydraulic 4-roll calender equipped with the latest technological devices like HYDROSHOT, including rubber sheeting production and composite lamination process.