How Powertrans Automation accelerated production with SigmaNEST

3 minutes read

When sheet-metal operations juggle many jobs and revisions, manual tracking and ambiguous CAD drawings can stall production at the worst moment.

Bottlenecks appear at nesting, bending, and reporting, leaving teams to chase missing parts and update stakeholders after the fact.

This story looks at how a high-mix manufacturer tightened its end-to-end process, reduced manual touches, and restored confidence in job status across the floor and front office.

Client Snapshot

Powertrans Automation was founded in 1987 and is trusted for quality, technical expertise, and timely delivery.

The company serves sectors ranging from oil and natural gas to steel and electrical, with projects that include 400 kV electrical substations, custom electrical and automation panels, bus ducts, and sheet-metal enclosures.

The operation identified workflow streamlining as a high-impact lever for competitiveness and customer service.

The Challenge

Three pain points dominated day-to-day performance.

First, part and remnant tracking was inconsistent, so some projects reached the end of production only to discover uncut or missing parts.

One late piece could pause an entire order and extend delivery times.

Second, programmers frequently struggled to distinguish cutting lines from bend lines on CAD drawings, which forced a two-step workflow to mark bends.

Third, reporting was slow, limiting visibility into where a job sat and what action was next.

Together these issues created stoppages, manual rework, and scheduling pressure.

The Solution

Powertrans Automation implemented SigmaNEST as the central nesting and tracking environment.

Integrated part-tracking brought all necessary items for nesting, cutting, and bending into a single, complete listing, eliminating manual entry errors and simplifying verification before release.

In press-brake preparation, SigmaNEST replaced the two-step manual process of selecting and marking bend lines with an automated approach, so programmers no longer had to select bend lines from drawing points or create separate marking lines.

Finally, built-in reporting produced customer- and job-specific outputs, enabling teams to tailor schedules and see precise job status at any moment.

SigmaNEST interface showing solution steps

What changed on the floor

Nesting became a shorter, cleaner step in the release process. Nesting time was reduced by 66%, directly improving lead times.
Press-brake programming shifted from manual line selection to an automated method, reducing human error and saving programmer time.
Reporting moved to customised, comprehensive outputs by customer, job, and part, improving planning and communication.

Results

The streamlined workflow delivered tangible gains in speed and predictability.

Programmers reported fewer manual interventions when placing parts and forming remnants, while teams gained clearer visibility of each job’s stage.

At a headline level, nesting time fell by 66%, and time for a representative process dropped from 4 hours to 1 hour 20 minutes, improving throughput and on-time delivery.

The combined improvements helped reduce shortages, smooth production flow, and redirect focus to product quality.

“It was important for us to find a nesting software like SigmaNEST to help us become more productive and error free. We can now re-shift our focus back on providing the best products for our customers. We fully trust SigmaNEST to outperform on every job we send to our machines.”
Ankush Khemesara, Assistant Manager of Design & Development.