Strong demand and technological advances have been the order of the day for moulder producers, according to key suppliers to the UK, Weinig and SCM. More recently, they maintain, there’s been some deceleration in the market. But machine and software developments continue, with a particular focus on automation, energy efficiency and waste reduction.
Weinig UK managing director Malcolm Cuthbertson said the company saw good order inflow throughout 2022.
“In terms of new enquiries there was a slowdown in the last couple of months, but that was expected due to the phenomenal level of business over the previous couple of years,” he said.
SCM UK managing director Gabriele de Col took a similar view.
“The timber market has been extremely positive, despite signs of slowdown in the second part of 2022,” he said. ”Part of the issues are supply chain related with a lack of materials and technical skills resulting in excessive lead times and lead times hindering investment.”
The single most successful machine for Weinig UK has again been the Cube.
“It’s cemented its position as the ‘must have’ four-side planer for small and mediumsized companies,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “It had a design revision during the year and is now the Cube 3. This upgrade enhances the capability of the basic machine, with the ability to specify a return feed system, making four-side planing a comfortable oneman operation.”
He added that demand also remained strong for the Powermat moulder range, due to its “unrivalled profile-to-profile changeover speed”.
During 2022 SCM’s main solid wood projects have been focused on medium sized companies, but, it says, larger manufacturers have also been looking at reorganisation of production to allow for increasing small batch numbers.
SCM’s last major innovation has been the restyling of its Superset nt model.
“We set ourselves the goal of optimising certain functions of the machine to make it even easier to use,” said Mr de Col. “The eye-M console has been integrated into the bedplate to make control easier for the operator, while the structure has been designed for them to work in total comfort and safety. Special supports allow suction hood covers to be hooked directly onto the bedplate, the right-hand guide sector can be adjusted by means of a pneumatic selector, millimetre scales simplify manual positioning during machine set-up, and tool change operations are always guided.”
Additionally SCM updated its Maestro active four-side planing and milling intuitive programming software, to further improve “ease of handling and interpretation of the operator interface”.
“Our moulders are also being equipped with Maestro Connect, to visualise, analyse and monitor all data from connected machines, transforming this into useful information for increasing productivity and reducing operating and maintenance costs,” said Mr de Col.
Recent years have also seen significant advances in CNC solid wood processing technology, but manufacturers see this working hand-in-hand with advancing moulders.
“The relationship between moulders and CNC machines is absolutely complementary,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “Every piece of timber that goes on a console CNC has to have been planed, so, as a minimum, every console CNC router user should have a Cube. In many cases there are complementary trim mouldings that go with a routered component so the moulder then also becomes essential.”
SCM maintains that the focus of woodworking manufacturers of any size is on flexibility more than productivity, resulting, from its perspective, on investment in CNC routers outstripping that in moulders.
But at the same time, it maintains, introduction of more advanced moulders with CN controls, like SCM eye-M, has resulted in substitution of traditional slow changeover machines for rapid changeover models like the SCM Superset nt and Topset for wood dressing, profiling and bead recovery activities.
Last year also saw the launch of the new Weinig Machine Control – WMC.
“This platform and human machine interface (hmi) is now common across the group, meaning every Weinig machine can be easily linked with any other machine from the group,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “In addition to this technical capability, the interface is customisable for each user and provides a clear graphical representation of everything that is needed to operate the machine safely and efficiently.”
Weinig, he added, has also been “constantly developing automation solutions” to complement its high speed moulders.
“During 2022 we delivered and installed a 200m/min Hydromat 4000 and an 80m/ min twin band saw in a mechanised line processing softwood mouldings,” he said. “And in 2023 the market will see clever and innovative solutions for lower speed moulders that will enable even a Powermat 1500 running at 24m/min becoming a one man cell operation.”
On this topic, SCM is currently installing a cell where the moulding machine is fed by robot.
“It will be an interesting experience, which will open the door to more process automation for the moulding industry,” said Mr de Col.
Yield and efficiency have also become an ever greater focus for moulder makers.
“Key to waste minimisation is eliminating set-up pieces,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “WMC is networked to the Weinig OptiControl measuring stand located in the toolroom, where essential tool dimensions are optically measured. These stored reference points are called up on the moulder during set-up and displayed on every electronic read out axis, so the heads only have to be moved to this new position and the first piece out of the moulder will be correct.”
To cut users’ energy costs, SCM has introduced more efficient IE3 standardcompliant electric motors on its moulding machines.
“It’s calculated that the purchase value of a three-phase electric motor is just 10% of the cost of its lifetime electricity consumption,” said Mr de Col. “So the cost to be optimised is not the purchase price but energy consumption.”
Another key aspect of their operations, say Weinig and SCM are their latest maintenance and troubleshooting services, designed to enable users to achieve maximum operating efficiency and output from their machines, with minimum downtime.
“Supporting our now 15-strong team of field service engineers, our office-based team use online diagnostics which can connect to all of our newer machines to provide quick checks and solutions,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “The new WMC control system is also bristling with onboard diagnostic capabilities, which can lead operators to the majority of machine errors.”
With the introduction of its Maestro Connect software on moulding machines, says SCM, users can access a number of [support] functions via a PC or smart device; Smart Machine for monitoring the machine and key components; Smart Management for controlling key performance indicators and report generation; and Smart Maintenance for maintenance support services and ticket opening. “The latter [function] supports management of ordinary, extraordinary and scheduled maintenance,” said Mr de Col. “Users can also define ad-hoc ‘scheduled maintenance’, linked to calendar periods – for instance, weekly machine base cleaning. The software also provides a system for automatically opening a service request for the Nottingham-based UK SCM service team directly from the Maestro Connect site on a PC.”
Clearly moulder producers have not been immune to materials and energy cost inflation over the last year and had to review their pricing accordingly.
“Unfortunately, this difficult situation has inevitably forced us to revise prices of some components, but until now, we have really tried to absorb [increased] costs internally, to limit the impact on the end customer,” said Mr de Col.
Weinig too has taken a strictly managed approach. “Raw material prices have affected the selling prices of all machinery in the UK, not just woodworking machines,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “The Weinig Group has applied carefully calculated increases to reflect these and not adopted an across the board approach.”
After the boom years of 2021 and 2022, he added, the moulder market is now expected to “calm down somewhat”.
“However, there is always a place for quality machines that offer productivity benefits over conventional moulders equipped with old fashioned spindle technology,” he said. “Therefore we expect sales of HSK-equipped Powermats to remain strong [given their] flexibility and productivity.”
The market aside, producers say they will push on with new technical developments.
In 2022 Weinig indicated the shape of things to come with the installation and commissioning of what it says is the fastest MDF profiling line in the world.
“This fully mechanised and automatic installation, which runs at 120 m/min, is centered around a Powermat 3000 moulder and incorporates an infeed system, a wide multi-rip saw, the moulder, painting and drying equipment followed by an automatic bundle building and strapping station and automatic stacking,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “Fully integrated and run by two supervisory operators with very high utilisation figures, this is without doubt state-of-the-art and the benchmark for the future.”
SCM also promises ground-breaking advances. “We are developing a new machine, which will see the light of day in the near future, with the aim of defining a new range of machines that will rank, in terms of performance, above the Superset nt range, SCM’s best-selling moulder model,” said Mr de Col. “We will be able to provide more information soon.”
