The £30,000 line pressed its first truss in December and full capacity will be achieved in the spring. It is expected to double Saffron Walden-based New World’s truss capacity.
"The combination of a strong order book and a growing volume of orders means that we need to increase capacity now," said Jason Aldous, New World’s business development manager.
The first Wolf truss manufacturing line was installed in 2011.
"Moving into trusses was a natural progression for us. It is complementary technology [to the timber frame operations] and it allows us to make the whole system under one roof. It also gives us a second string to our bow because we can sell trusses to the masonry market as well."
The new line has a computerised "teach and go" capability, which memorises pressing patterns from the first truss in a batch, allowing the rest to be pressed automatically.
Mr Aldous said building sector workloads remained generally low, but New World had a policy of actively pursuing new opportunities and was steadily growing its market share.
