Fläkt Woods has invested over €3 million in new equipment at its factory in Jönkoping, Sweden, in a step-by-step replacement and upgrade programme of their heavy primary manufacturing systems.
Commenting on the investment, Robert Petersson, general manager at the Swedish factory says: "Our programme aims to convert the primary manufacturing facility into a modern, high productive and lean manufacturing facility. Our aim is to be able to make piece-part manufacturing in single batches, without set-up times, in the shortest possible lead-times, for the lowest cost."
The massive spend consists of two punch and share centres and an in-line bending machine. The punches are already installed and the in-line bending centre will be delivered in October 2007, when it will be connected to one of the punch and share centres.
Traditionally the set-up of the machines is for larger batch production. Fläkt Woods has used the investment to optimize the machines for small or single batch production, this being the majority of the factory’s output
Salvagnini intelligent bending machines are very different. They are automatic and therefore do not require operators. Fläkt Woods CAD drawings are automatically imported from the design department and are transformed into finished products in a matter of seconds with no prototyping or setups.
Robert Petersson continues "With the new bending machine we are able to run made-to-order parts from blanks to finished products without set-up and with extremely low lead-time. For example, the lead-time of a typical order of approximately 1-2 hours of manufacturing time will be reduced from 3-5 days to approx 2 hours."
The replacement program is scheduled for completion in 2009.
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