The new £1m production line at MDF mouldings manufacturer W Howard Ltd is now operating for around nine hours a day, five days a week – and production could soon be ramped up.
The Manchester-based company’s decision to invest was based on the booming housing market which has a healthy appetite for its Primer Mould range of products including architraves, skirting and window boards.
The fully automated line, which runs at up to 80m/min, cuts large MDF sheets into pieces of the required width which are then moulded, sanded and painted with a water-based primer, dried, denibbed, painted and then dried for a second time.
To protect the finished products, W Howard’s investment included an automated strapping system from Cambridgeshire-based Cyklop UK which collates moulded sections into small bundles and secures them into larger cubic metre packs ready for transporting.
After collation, the small bundles are introduced into a Cyklop CI89Y vertical strapping machine which applies heat sealed 9mm polypropylene straps at regular intervals. The bundles are then collated into batches and passed through a CI1110 top sheet dispenser which applies a length of film before moving on into the XF111 MVB strapper.
Here the Cyklop bunk applicator automatically introduces a wooden ‘bearer’ at three points along the pack length which facilitates movement by forklift truck and protects the product from damage. It is believed to be the first use of an automated bunk applicator in the UK MDF moulding industry.
W Howard managing director Jonathan Grant said: “We took the decision to fully automate the process on the new line due to the increased throughput we need to achieve. We looked at various options but the Cyklop equipment fitted well with the TM Systems conveying equipment we had selected.”
Another factor was the equipment’s ability to handle loads of differing sizes.
