Above: SISTEC acquisition brings robotic integration in house.
August, 2025- Digitization, artificial intelligence, sustainable practices and integrated automation continue to reshape the industrial landscape, pushing manufacturers to adopt new technologies and products. In a bid to remain competitive, manufacturers and fabricators are being challenged to create a roadmap for greater efficiency and resilience.
“Where other companies have diversified, Prima Power is refocusing on its core business to help its customer base level up for today’s demands and future-proof parts production,” says Ryan O’Connor, marketing manager for Prima Power North America.
The company builds sheet metal fabrication equipment, providing machines ranging from 2D and 3D laser cutting to punching and bending. Its products and services include integrated automation for material handling, storage and parts processing. Prima Power uses a modular approach to engineer flexible, custom manufacturing systems. Its products also employ a “green means” design concept that combines sustainability with productivity.
“The company has made a series of strategic moves this year to position itself as an all-inone partner for advanced modular sheet metal fabrication machines,” says O’Connor. “Acquisition, factory expansion and new machine development like our 3D laser have helped push Prima Power to the forefront of the sheet metal machines industry.”
ACQUISITION AND EXPANSION
Last December, Prima Industrie SpA (through its Prima Power brand) acquired industrial automation company Sistec AM. Based in Pordenone, Italy, Sistec AM designs, develops and manufactures robotic and customized automation systems for production processes. e company specializes in integrating complex solutions into existing industrial frameworks to help manufacturers optimize efficiency and productivity.
The acquisition is strategic to the company’s evolve-by-integration strategy, says Prima Industrie/Prima Power CEO Giovanni Negri. “It expands our product offering and also reinforces our ability to anticipate and respond to the dynamic needs of our customers in terms of integrated and scalable solutions.”
In July, Prima Power celebrated the expansion of its Cologna Veneta plant. As the center of Prima Power’s bending technology, the Italian factory supports research and development. The project, which started a year earlier, adds roughly 27,000 sq. ft . of space, increasing bending machine production by 50 percent. A 150 kW, roof-based solar plant boosts sustainability, while a new building includes an Academy Hall, offices and spaces for visiting customers and employees. The site also features a tech center for demos, training spaces and feasibility studies. This investment reflects the growing market demand for advanced bending applications.
In March, Prima Power divested a subsidiary, Prima Additive, which had developed metal 3D printing solutions such as laser powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition. “We chose to sell Prima Additive to focus more closely on our core business of sheet metal processing systems and 3D laser cutting machines,” Negri explains.
Giga Laser Next is engineered with a unique configuration of four synchronized laser heads working simultaneously on the same part.
Ryan O’Connor, Prima Power Prima Power expects to complete renovations on its North American headquarters facility by mid-October. Located near Chicago, the facility is being upgraded and space added for parts inventory, which will improve customers’ access to critical spare parts supply. “Prima Power is investing in the dominant North American market with a direct focus on customer-specific initiatives,” says O’Connor.
By expanding Prima Power’s Cologna Veneta plant, it becomes a global fulfi llment center for all the machinery builder’s advanced bending technology.
BREAKTHROUGH
Aside from its business expansion and growth initiatives, Prima Power is launching two new machines in 2025. According to O’Connor, Giga Laser Next featuring four heads in one compact system is “a game-changing breakthrough in 3D laser cutting, tailored to help customers meet the challenges of high-volume automotive manufacturing.”
The Giga Laser Next was designed for automotive body cutting and shape, he says. “It’s already been installed in the facilities of a few major automotive customers in the U.S. The machine represents a world-first configuration that allows four laser heads in a Cartesian machine to work simultaneously on a single part to deliver unprecedented efficiencies in time and space.”
He says it can be fully integrated with lean automation and is suited for unmanned production lines.
The new model is geared for giga-factories dedicated to high throughput of high-strength steel automotive components. “With automotive OEMs scaling up to meet giga-factory output and EV demand, Prima Power recognized that previous generation laser systems would have difficulty keeping up,” O’Connor says. “The Giga Laser Next allows an OEM to maximize floor space, minimize direct labor and manage multiple vehicle models and market fluctuations while meeting short lead times.”
Prima Power LPBB Line (laser, punch, buffer, bend) with integrated 7-axis robot for the last bend.
“This is not just a technological achievement,” adds Negri, “it’s the result of listening to our customers and translating their giga-scale ambitions into a tangible solution.”
The Giga Laser Next is expected to boost productivity by as much as 280 percent compared with previous models. It has an idle time of about 2 seconds due to parallel loading/ unloading while a process is performed on another station. In addition to supporting embedded solutions for loading and unloading, the Giga Laser Next can perform quality checks and marking. It also has the ability to connect directly to stamping or assembly lines. “There are no AI tricks,” O’Connor says. “Just engineering magic and real-world giga-productivity.”
Prima Power is introducing additional 3D technology this fall, which he says “promises to yet again revolutionize 5-axis processing, for additional markets.
“All these activities over the past two years are tied to one goal: to improve our core business and focus on our customers’ needs by providing flexible, automated, and superior sheet metal processes and tools.”
FFJ Prima Power North America, 847/952-6500, http://primapower.com/
