Talleres Casals was created in 1881 by F. Casals in Ripoll (Girona,
Spain). In 1922 manufacture of the first Casals hand-held drills was
initiated. Since then the company has been engaged in manufacturing
of electromechanical power hand-held tools and machines for special
uses.
In 1989 the Company was participated by a multinational Italian group,
Freud-Pozzo, resulting in a sensible expansion of the range of products
manufactured which produced also an expansion of the markets addressed.
Today, Talleres Casals exports 40% of the total production to 50 different
countries world wide.
Besides the main factory and headquarters located in the town of Ripoll,
Talleres Casals has a manufacturing branch located in Sant Joan de les
Abadesses (Girona, Spain) specialised in the manufacture of electric
fans. A Commercial and Logistic Division located in the town of Sant
Joan Despí, at the outskirts of Barcelona, completes the Casals organisation
of 350 people. The division of special purpose machines has 200 employees.
The turnover in 1998 was 15.4 MEUR.
The objective of this Application Experiment addresses the speed control
electronics of hand-held drills and drivers for professional and consumer
applications. The goal of the AE was to improve functionality and performance
of the high-end market products under the specific constraint and specification
to keep the size of the electronics small in order to preserve the size
of the machines. This has been accomplished in such a way that increased
functionality has been added to the old product, namely the speed controllability
(speed range) has been increased, torque limitation has been improved
and some monitoring features (over-temperature protection, soft-start,
etc.) have been incorporated. The microcontroller technology has shown
to be effective to achieve these goals, especially for the machines
including soft-start without size penalisation.
Talleres Casals policy is to be present in the high-end market segment
as a strategic goal for the next future. A competitive presence in this
market required the acquisition of new and modern technology, mainly
in the electronics involved in the speed and torque control of the drills.
The application experiment was perfectly in line with the Talleres Casals
policy and was a key issue in the development of new products.
The cost of the AE was 44.8 KEUR and the duration 11 months. The payback
period was 17 months and the return on investment (ROI) was 283 %.
Another benefit of the AE for Talleres Casals has been the opportunity
to incorporate a new technology to the culture of the Corporation considered
to be strategic in the near future.
