Summary
• Masterwood has supplied 11 machines incorporating window and stair software in the last two months.
• Homag’s Magi-Cut software is used for dimensioning and sizing panels in conjunction with beam-panel saws.
• SCM is developing its own software and CAD/CAM packages.
• Weinig’s MillVision allows companies to combine customer orders.

The technology powering today’s woodworking machinery might be cutting-edge, but the benefits are not exactly rocket science.

Better yields, greater flexibility, lower production costs and simplification: these are the basic improvements that companies are looking for from their software, and ones that machinery manufacturers are delivering in spades.

Cost reductions through minimising wastage of both time and raw materials have resulted in a growth in automation as timber and joinery manufacturers look, wherever possible, to improve the overall efficiency of their factories.

Improvements and upgrades to machinery software have been critical in helping drive these efficiencies. “Software is just as important as the machine,” said Russell Corlett, managing director of CNC machining centre manufacturer and specialist software developer Masterwood (UK) Ltd. “It helps improve efficiencies and productivity.”

Saving labour hours

Masterwood has now installed numerous machines with its Master Window and Master Sliding Sash specialist software packages, which Mr Corlett said are “doing exactly what we promised – saving our clients huge amounts of labour hours”.

In the last two months, the company has taken 11 machine orders, a mixture of window machines and staircase machines – but all of them have either Master Window/Master Sliding Sash or Master Stair specialist software packages supplied with them.

Masterwood is rare among CNC machining centre manufacturers in developing its own software for wood processing rather than relying on third-party packages. Its software designers work closely with the company’s development engineers to deliver innovative Windows-compatible programs, which, says the company, are simple to learn and easy to use.

Following several modifications over the last six years, Masterwood has totally upgraded its Master Stair software. “We have continued to listen to our customers’ suggestions and have been working on this major enhancement package for two years,” said Mr Corlett. “Not only have we included no fewer than 17 new features but we have totally upgraded the graphics, making them even clearer.”

Minimum off-cut waste, maximum cost vacuum yield and machine time speed – these are the three key advantages claimed for Homag’s Magi-Cut software, said to be the most advanced parameter-based optimisation software of its kind, used for dimensioning and sizing panels in conjunction with beam-panel saws, particularly Holzma.

With the beam saw at the heart of panel processing, Magi-Cut has become important further upstream – particularly with regard to quotations, order processing and production scheduling in the factory. The system can be used both on or off-line. Increasingly, Magi-Cut is used on-line to the saw so that the operator receives cutting instructions for individual batches or jobs at the CNC console – the saw is automatically programmed and the operator is there to ensure correct feeding, off-stacking and proceeding cut panels downstream into the factory.

One company experiencing the benefits is timber and panel products supplier Palmer Timber, which has installed the latest high-capacity Holzma HPL 510 beam saw at its Cradley Heath factory in the West Midlands.

Fast turnaround

Central to the company’s Panel Products Division is a bespoke cut-to-size service that is in ever-increasing demand as customers look to add value to their products. Not only does Palmer Timber offer a fast turnaround on minimum cut-to-size quantities but also cuts panels to customer order for their stocks.

When it came to replacing its existing beam saw, Palmer Timber opted for a Holzma HPL510. The company’s requirement was for significantly increased capacity as output demand continues to grow, while response times are also growing ever shorter.

It also wanted a high level of flexibility as customers’ requirements become ever more varied. A vital element of the saw’s specification was the Magi-Cut optimisation software with its parameter-based calculation to achieve not only optimum yield but also cost (according to the product being cut) and optimum usage of saw time.

Since the installation in June last year, Palmer Timber says that volumes are up by 33% and that it has recorded significant savings in time and labour as the handling systems are so effective. These efficiencies include allowing small batch production, short delivery times and far greater mixing of batches and production schedules while maintaining high capacity output.

The Magi-Cut software also allows Palmer Timber to print individual product labels to customer requirements at the outfeed of the saw, containing any product identification information required, including bar coding, for further downstream production requirements. With the Magi-Cut operated off-line, the operators can simply follow instruction on the CNC controller monitor.

At SCM, demand for CNC machines for all types of production has greatly increased, especially for the production of doors, windows and stairs. “At SCM UK we just cannot get enough CNCs from our Rimini factory, which is running at maximum production levels,” said managing director Mike King.

“As well as the machine control system, they want easy-to-use CAD/CAM software to use on a PC off-line and then download direct to the CNC machine. This has been common in the furniture and shopfitting industries for many years but joinery companies have woken up and in many cases are going straight in to 5-axis machines for complex machining operations.”

Mr King said SCM was continually working alongside well-known brands such as AlphaCam and StairCon, but was also developing its own software and CAD/CAM packages to “give customers exactly what they want”.

Meanwhile, maximising yields is also one of the key benefits stated for Weinig’s MillVision software. A number of customers, in the US, Europe and, more recently, in the UK, with complex cutting patterns are now using MillVision with substantial success – and reaching higher productivity and yield levels than previously achieved.

“MillVision is an overall organisational piece of software that works in conjunction with one of our cross-cut saws,” explained Malcolm Cuthbertson, sales manager, Weinig UK. “This means that not only is the factory better organised than it used to be but also that it achieves better material yield than it did previously.”

Organisational benefits

Organisational benefits come principally from being able to identify each individual piece of wood at almost every stage of the manufacturing process. “It means you can find any one piece of wood within a factory,” added Mr Cuthbertson.

MillVision allows companies to combine customer orders: they could put an order that requires long lengths together with one that needs short lengths and therefore dramatically increase the yield of their timber.

“There’s nothing worse than getting halfway through the manufacturing process and finding that a piece of wood has to be replaced for some reason,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “To identify that bit would be a real pain. Now, with a label and a bar code on each part, you can tap the number into the computer running MillVision and all the details are there.”

MillVision also works alongside Weinig’s PowerCom production software, which is designed to make setting the profiles as easy as possible. It also saves large quantities of profile and tool data and provides the setting values to the tool holders (spindles) in question. PowerCom software can be built into the machine’s operating panel. The software saves up to 10,000 pieces of profile and tool data and displays the setting values in the relevant position. Once a profile has been saved in the PowerCom system, it can be called up and produced at any time by pushing a button. Weinig says the key benefits are “massive reduction in set-up times, simple setting of profiles and optional automatic positioning”.

“With MillVision and PowerCom, manufacturers are able to have an integrated system from Weinig which allows for customer orders to be grouped together to gain economies on timber yield at the cross-cutting stage,” said Mr Cuthbertson.