Contract furniture manufacturer Teal Furniture is set to take delivery of a £300,000 multi-function Koch CNC machine to speed production and overcome skills shortages.
The company, which employs 23 on two sites at High Wycombe and Stokenchurch, near Rye, is due to take delivery of the machine in February. It is able to bore, tenon, mortise and spindle in one operation. The machine will be able to perform operations, such as angle tenoning, which have had to be performed separately on standalone machines.
Les Dilleyston, production manager, said: ‘Basically this will enable us to put a piece of timber in one end and out of the other will emerge a tenoned leg that only needs sanding. And this machine can be operated by one man.’
In addition to delivering a 25% increase in capacity, the machine will help overcome the severe skills shortages that Teal and other furniture manufacturers are experiencing in the High Wycombe area.
Mr Dilleyston said: ‘It is very, very hard to get skilled machinists at the moment so we are getting the new machine partly help us save on labour.’
Teal expects up to four people to retire from the business shortly and hopes the machine will make up for any difficulty in finding replacements for them.
Teal is in the process of building a new extension to its High Wycombe plant to make room for the Koch machine. The extension will house the timber conversion area so that machining can be concentrated at the existing High Wycombe site.
