China’s leading coal mining equipment producer Zhengzhou Coal Mining Machinery invested in 2013 into a unique fully automatic CNC cutting line built as a cooperation project of MicroStep, MicroStep-Puris and Terex Material Handling with its Demag brand. The line consists of 8 CombiCut machines with cutting area 28 x 3 m (each equipped with 2 HD plasma sources and an inkjet marker), 1 automated overhead travelling crane (9 t x 16.5 m) for automatic plate handling, 1 input wagon with load capacity of 15 t and 2 output conveyors for collecting of cut parts and removing of waste material. The entire line is operated in a fully automatic mode by MicroStep’s production management software MPM with integrated Demag software for crane management and material handling.

The line replaced the standard oxyfuel cutting production process. As a result of use of a modern HD plasma technology and first of all thanks to automation of production preparation, cutting plan distribution and material handling not only the cut quality could be enhanced significantly, but also the efficiency of part manufacturing could be increased by up to 75 % with one production cycle taking 1 – 2 hours instead of previous 4 – 8 hours. Furthermore the line increased the production volume of the factory by 40 % to 28,000 tons per month while the line itself is designed for processing 8,000 - 12,000 tons of mild steel per month in a three-shift operation.