Cupa Group uses artificial intelligence to improve operations in its 24 shale warehouses

More than four decades have passed since then cuphe the most important group in the slate sector, opted for innovation. From there came market-leading products such as Thermochip, Stonepanel, Thermoslate and, more recently, Cupaclad. Seven years ago in a company based in Valdeorras Carballeda They thought about the application of innovation in production processes, something new considering that it is a very traditional sector in terms of the way it works, he says. Antonio Trincado, financial director of Cupa Grupa, in the presentation. They managed to improve the sawing and palletizing processes, and for the last three years they have been working (through a consortium with Tecdesoft and Cetim) on improving the coordination between sawing and cutting and between sawing and cutting.

He use of artificial intelligence and big data they enabled the improvement of production processes as well as the organization of work. This made it possible to “reduce the time spent on production planning,” he pointed out. David Rodriguez, Tecdesoft project manager. What used to take two weeks of work can now be done in just two hours, and can be recalculated daily if necessary.

One of the pillars of the work was related to automated integral tillage. “Using artificial vision, we can analyze slate blocks to choose where to remove the cap to make it homogenous and put it into the carving machines,” he explained. Jose Luis fuck, the Cupa project manager, thus preventing the loss of materials. In addition, a prototype machine was created that “will enable the transition from carving to cutting without human hands, with an automatic cart,” he advanced. And the use of robots on the rail for palletizing, i.e. placing planks on pallets for transport, was also tested. “We have achieved an automation rate of almost 80%,” he noted.

This was not an easy task because there were a total of 24 slate processing warehouses, located mainly in Valdeorras and El Bierzo, where natural stone extracted from twenty quarries is processed.

Another of the ongoing researches is related to 3D printing of geopolymers. “It is a mixture of waste shale powder with a solution that gives a material that hardens at room temperature. It’s like cement without cement,” he explained. Alberto Miguens, responsible for construction in Cetim. The first results are good, but there are still aspects that need to be improved (such as weather resistance).

The Smart4Slate project was implemented with an investment of EUR 3.5 million, of which EUR 1.75 million was contributed by the Xunta through the Galician Innovation Agency. «It enables the transformation of the industrysaid his director, Patricia Argerey.