One year of successful challenges between Rollomatic and EPFL
Rollomatic direction and their Innovation Cells' team accompanied by the team of Large Enterprises at VPI © M.Gerber / 2019 EPFL© 2019 EPFL
It’s been a year since the Swiss private company Rollomatic, specializing in high-precision machines, opened its first innovation unit at the EPFL, a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. This first year has been full of innovations and promising projects related to a whole host of topics around Industry 4.0, data science, software, robotics and optics.
Rollomatic is a company skilled in the design and manufacturing of high precision CNC machines for production grinding of cutting tools, cylindrical grinding, and laser cutting of ultra-hard materials. It is customer-oriented and provides complete manufacturing solutions for the grinding of precision tools and parts, as wells as peripheral applications on wheel dressing and tool measurement.
With Rollomatic, the cutting tools needed to make smartphones, tablets, planes, cars and medical devices are high-tech products made with ultra-precision machines. Thanks to a close collaboration between EPFL laboratories and Rollomatic, the expertise of our engineers make it possible to carry out these complex projects requiring the years of industry know-how. As well as having a strong R&D strategy, Rollomatic also seeks to promote greater exchanges between industry & research experts within the EPFL innovation unit.
The 4th industrial revolution in perspective
Since its creation in 1989, Rollomatic has designed, manufactured, and marketed its production systems around the world, constantly innovating in the digital space. The company devotes a large part of its work to machine connectivity, remote process monitoring and information processing with an ERP. The 107m2 EPFL space hosts around 10 engineers and students who work together on various projects. A large portion of their research activties are focused on the 4th industrial revolution with topics involving the IT sector, software mathematics with differential geometry, as well as material science, mechanics & robotics, and optics in order to develop new machining processes for the tool grinding industry.
Environmentally-conscious Rollomatic is turning to solar energy
Located in Le Landeron, a small town in the Neuchâtel municipality, the company headquarters extends over some 15'000m² and stemmed from the original Francis Rollier company, historically known for the manufacturing of tungsten carbide. Rollomatic is interested in sustainability and has installed 4'300m2 of solar panels where they produce about 50% of Rollomatic's total consumption per year (~1.35 GWh). Thanks to its expertise and visionary spirit, Rollomatic now enjoys an international reputation and is one of the world leaders in the manufacture of high-precision grinding machines.
Contact at Rollomatic
Nicolas Berger
Innovation Cell Manager @Rollomatic
EPFL Innovation Park, Building F, 1015 Lausanne