A growing Bedfordshire hardwood mouldings company has installed a Weinig Unimat 3000 profile centre to replace three conventional moulders and solve difficulties in recruiting skilled labour.
Sandy-based DW Mouldings Ltd also purchased the six-spindle Unimat to cope with increasing demand from builders, shopfitters, flooring companies and joinery manufacturers for faster turnaround times and short runs.
Managing director David Howard said the CNC machine had increased productivity fourfold and reduced manufacturing costs by more than 50%.
He said: “It used to take us one-and-a-half hours to set up for an L-shaped section. Now it takes a mere 15-20 minutes and we are likely to improve on this, as we are still on a learning curve.”
The Unimat 3000’s 12,000rpm spindle speed means throughfeed speed is twice as fast as conventional moulders, and following production run can be pre-programmed by computer while current jobs are being processed.
Weinig also supplied toolroom equipment comprising a PC-controlled template maker; a Rondamat 960 profile grinder; an OptiControl measuring and information system; and CAS-LogoCom software.
This allows DW Mouldings to produce the tooling needed for any profile required by customers.
