A hardwood conservatory manufacturer says making the jump up to CNC technology has transformed its factory operations and brought in additional business.

Country Hardwood Conservatories (CHC), a £2.5m-turnover business in Little Horwood, opted for an SCM Record 110 NT TVN Prisma machining centre after years of operating smaller classical woodworking machines.

“Using existing classical woodworking machines is very labour intensive and components have to be moved from one machine to another, thus losing data, and this is where inaccuracies creep in that are noticeable during the assembly and installation processes on site,” said joint owner Mark Osborne.

After major product developments 18 months ago, Mr Osborne and business partner Luke Wynder decided to investigate the CNC route and ended up selecting a five-axis machine.

They said the component parts of conservatory and orangery roof structures were becoming more complex, with compound angles and joints that were difficult to produce on standard woodworking machines.

The ability of the Record to process all components in one go means virtually all of the company’s components are now processed on the machine. Country said its versatility was especially helpful machining bi-fold doors.

Using the 5-axis head, dowelling of all joints is now standard with centre distances slightly altered on each joint, aiding assembly and reducing errors on site.

“Installing the SCM CNC machining centre has had a dramatic and positive effect on CHC’s business. We can offer virtually anything that our customers require as we can now produce all the components, easier, faster, more accurately and avoid problems we used to experience on site,” said Mr Osborne.

“In turn this has gained us additional business and we can only see our company progressing into further technology for our manufacturing processes.”

The Prisma was supplied with a 4700mm-long TVN table, which can take eight components at a time; a Rapid-24 automatic tool changer holding up to 24 tools; and SCM Xilog Plus software.

CHC uses sapele, oak and idigbo, with the latter light-coloured timber becoming more popular because of its similarity to oak when stained, yet is considerably cheaper.