Machine tool manufacturers are faced by ever increasing demands by customers for greater reliability and productivity when purchasing their machines, whilst they are also looking for lower costs and energy bills.

In order to meet this demand, NC SERVICE has embarked on an R&D&I policy directed at integrating our customers' demands for excellent quality products with an improvement in our competitiveness in the second-hand machinery market.

This line undertaken by NC SERVICE has at all times been promoted by the R+D+i policy ever present in the IBP Group which we are a member of. In this Group, particular mention should be made of the company Hiperbaric, with its extensive history of executing research and development projects.

Our research and development projects:

Machine-tool projects

At NC Service we are continuing with the R&D&I project line, by taking part in 2010 in a project coming under the 7th European Framework Program for Research, within the machine-tool sector.

Currently, NC SERVICE continues to be committed to the development of new projects, always directed at offering our customers improved performance and at seeking improved reliability in our new and second-hand range of machines.

This Innovation Project, the Development of a Cloud Augmented Reality (AR) Technique and its applications for the Machine Tools sector in Castilla y León (ARCBECYL), directed at improving business competitiveness by providing support to the Innovative Business Clusters of Castilla y León, was implemented from 16 February to 15 October 2021.

Under the coordination of the Machine Tools Cluster of Castilla y León (CBCyL), and with the involvement of the Miranda de Ebro Technology Centre (CTME) and the company INGEMOV, NC Service Milling Machines, S.A. took part in this Project whose key objective was the design of a programmable environment to permit the development of web-based industrial Augmented Reality (AR) applications adapted to the needs of Machine Tool companies in the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León.

Within the lines of action of the Project, NC Service played a very active part in the design and development of 6 augmented reality demonstrators:

 

Thanks to the results of this ARCBECyL Project, the following services are available to innovative companies:

  • Offer their customers greater added value for their products by making it possible for customers to interact with their products.
  • Improve processes through the application of these augmented reality techniques.
  • Marketing actions that enhance customer relations by showing a 3D model of their products.
  • Geolocation services based on coordinates to display expanded information of the area.

 

The companies forming part of the CBECyL Cluster will be able to offer their customers all these services, allowing them to achieve a more competitive position in the market by offering values and brand positioning that are clearly differentiated from their competitors.

 

 

This project is being conducted within the framework of the call for grants for year 2021, directed at improving business competitiveness through support for Innovative Business Clusters (AAEEII) of the Regional Ministry of Finance and Tax of Castilla y León, co-founded with ERDF funds contributing to Objective OT3 “ACHIEVE A MORE COMPETITIVE BUSINESS FABRIC” of the ERDF operational program for Castilla y León.

For NC Service the DEMAT project (Dematerialised Manufacturing Systems) was its first venture into the 7th Framework Program for Research, funded by the European Commission.

For a company that constructs and employs machinery, it is essential to guarantee the high performance and productivity of its machines. However, as these machines are normally for extremely heavy material, with production processes requiring high energy consumption, the need arises to dematerialise the machine-tool.

Therefore, the DEMAT Project was launched with the primary objective of designing production systems that would guarantee the achievement of maximum added value for the machine-tool, whilst minimising the material resources used and always maintaining its properties of productivity, precision and reliability.

In this way, the DEMAT Project made it possible to develop a new form of designing, constructing, using and selling machine tools in Europe, maintaining the productivity and quality of the machines, yet minimising the consumption of material and energy resources through the integration and adjustment of the mechanics, the control and the dynamics of the machine in the machining process. All this was applied in the design of structures, also using new materials to achieve this objective and new structural concepts, which finally made it possible to reduce the consumption of raw material by up to 30%.

At NC Service, we have taken part, as end users, in the results of the Project, which were achieved through the design of a multidisciplinary machine model, combined with a process to reduce the amount of material used in the machine design.

The DEMAT project, headed by TECNALIA (ES) and with the participation of a further fifteen European entities (CECIMO (BE), Ibarmia (ES), Micromega (BE), CESI (IT), NC SERVICE (ES), Intelliact (CH), D.Electron (IT), Missler (FR), CNR-ITIA (IT), KULeuven (BE), EPFL (CH), Fraunhofer-ISI (DE), Bath (UK), ISW-Stuttgart (DE) and MCM (IT)), was declared one of the ten best European projects of the year in the production sector within the Industrial Technologies 2012 forum of reference for experts in nanotechnologies, advanced materials and new production systems, held in Aarhus, Denmark.

Project funded by the 7th FrameWork Programme.

As part of the expanding process we embarked on at NC Service in order to reinforce our business structure in the city of Burgos, we carried out a project for the acquisition of a new industrial premises in order to increase our production and storage capacity.

This surrounding new factory implies an investment of two million euros and has a surface of 4,653 m2. It is divided into two areas, one for the exhibition where milling machines after being refurbished could be inspected under power and under mechanizing conditions, and a second zone for storing the machinery once arriving to the company before retrofitting process starts.

This project is co-financed by the “Agencia de Innovación, Financiación e Internacionalización Empresarial de Castilla y León (ADE)” and by “The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)” in 50%, within the Operational Programme 2014-2020 of Castilla y León.

Renewable energy projects

In 2006, at NC Service we started out in R&D&I projects, by going into a new business line within the field of RES and clean technologies, directed at diversifying our industrial activity, promoting sustainable development and helping to comply with the environmental objectives, standards and regulations.

As a result of this new activity at NC SERVICE, we developed a number of R&D&I projects within the renewable energies area and, more specifically, focussing on the maximum utilization of biomass energy.

In mid-2010, at the NC Service facilities, we constructed the first system in Spain based on the generation of heat through the burning of wood chips or other biomasses in a furnace, permitting the small-scale production of electricity through a 125 kWe (Clean CycleTM) ORC module. In this way we fulfilled the key objective of the BIOCOM Project (Modular Combustion Plants for the production of electricity from forest biomass), which was launched in 2007.

These NC SERVICE premises also served to successfully demonstrate the operation of one of the first ORC modules for this power output (125 kWe) that was successfully marketed throughout the world (CLEAN CYCLETM). This ORC module utilizes a heat source (chimney fumes, landfill or engine gases, process heat, etc.) and is able to generate electricity on a small scale, permitting partial load operation and self-consumption from the first kilowatt generated, producing zero emissions, with a modular, scalable design, high reliability, high profitability and low maintenance.

Administrations co-funding the BIOCOM Project:

  • MICINN
  • MITYC
  • ADE
  • ERDF funds.

In 2011, NC Service achieved the objective of executing the design engineering of a biomass pyrolysis plant to generate electricity on a small scale using ORC technology (125 kWe), as well as to produce charcoal, thereby complying with the objectives of the BIORECOS project ("Modular pyrolysis plants for the production of electricity from vegetable biomass").

Administrations co-funding the BIORECOS Project:

  • CDTI
  • MITYC
  • ADE
  • ERDF funds.
  • Torres Quevedo Program