IMA-Schelling Group Canada has just launched a world premiere right here in Brampton, Ontario.
Murat Dogan, president, says they are proud to have launched such an innovative automatic panel processing line in Canada first.
The line - at Woodlore International, which operates from 140,000 sq. ft. facility utilizing state-of-the-art equipment and automated processes - is specifically designed to process batch-size-one production, with the ability to handle medium batch size orders as well.
Usually these kinds of world premieres are launched in Europe, but Dogan says, “this shows you that we have some forward-thinking companies in Canada as well.
“This is also a very important installation for Germany/Austria for a number of different reasons as it is utilizing some brand-new technologies, such as what we call a pairing system where you are increasing the capacity of the edgebander by up to 35 per cent by optimizing the way you are feeding and out feeding the parts.
Dogan says of course this is not just mechanical, but it also involves software.
Another feature is that it is a lot of machinery and a lot of production in a very small footprint and with very few operators.
“You are looking at two to three operators per shift and depending on what you are manufacturing, you can be getting up to 5,000 to 6,000 edges per shift,” he says.
“It could be batch size one, so mass customization, or it could be bigger batch sizes, which is always easier to make.
Dogan says their installations are always custom, no two are alike.
It’s built for one company, because it’s usually space-specific layouts they are having to work with.
He says you can’t just pick any given line up and put it in another location, these layouts are almost always different. So it’s a matter of the building, but also the workflow of the company. They may be similar in principal, but everyone is unique.
In this case, the company approached IMS-Schelling with their requirements and they said OK, this is how we can accomplish this.
“There is a big catch there though,” Dogan says. “It takes a lot on the side of the manufacturer to understand the solution you are offering them and in this case that was not a problem because they had a lot of experience and knowledge in the product and the solution. So they were very quick to realize that this was the right thing for them. But that is not always easy.
Dogan says the customer needs an experiences group of people to appreciate “what we are suggesting. Otherwise, you have to show them via demonstrations and plant tours.”
As to the world-premier part of this installation, Dogan says it is the fact that it is such a compact system in a small space with very few people producing this much.
The other part is to have an increase in capacity on such a small footprint.
“And when I say with such a small installation, it’s despite the fact that for most people this looks huge from a Canadian perspective, but from a European perspective this is a very compact installation.”
