Every 20 seconds a new panel, drilled, dowelled and with all the requisite fittings inserted, comes off the REM production system at Kingstown Furniture, one of the UK’s leading furniture manufacturers, in Hull.
It goes straight to one of two assembly lines. This rhythm is maintained throughout the day. The result is 200 pieces of furniture an hour, bedroom, lounge, dining room and home office.
At night the new REM CNC machining line – total cost, including installation of ancillary equipment, was around £750,000 – continues producing panels. This time there is no assembly operation. Instead the REM return system is activated. Panels are machined, fittings, such as cams and dowels, inserted and the panels returned to the operator for loading into ready-to-assemble (RTA) packs. RTA furniture accounts for about 5% of Kingstown’s total output, but is growing.
The new REM system, marketed in the UK exclusively by RW Woodmachines, has revolutionised production at Kingstown. Previously, it relied heavily on a number of throughfeed borers. The problem here was that around 26% of production time was consumed in setting up these machines. One result of this was a sizeable level of work in progress on the factory floor, usually amounting to around £300,000.
Manufacturing flexibility
There was little likelihood of Kingstown being able to escape this situation without major changes; Kingstown’s demand, like that of an increasing number of furniture companies, is for shorter production runs and greater variations of size and shape.
To meet this demand Kingstown’s managing director Mike Sharp and engineering projects manager Terry Beckett, set out to find a suitable production system.
“Quite simply we wanted speed and flexibility,” says Mr Sharp. “With the REM this is what we’ve got. Furthermore we can handle any length of production run, from one to one million and one, it doesn’t make any difference”.
Kingstown started of its quest for a new production system by drawing up a list of 10 machinery organisations. This was soon reduced to six. Kingstown’s searching investigation removed another three.
With the shortlist down to two, Chris Woodcock, of RW Woodmachines, introduced Kingstown to Luigi Reguzzi, the head of REM, who swiftly produced an ace. This was the company’s independent spindle system. Each spindle has its own brushless 0.3kW motor. The size of the sealed motor is slightly larger than a cigarette packet. It meant that, once a customer’s drilling process had been determined, as many spindles as necessary can be positioned on a matrix carrier – and positioned in such a way that panels may be drilled in remarkably quick times.
New technology
Traditional independent drilling blocks are of fixed configuration because one motor drives all spindles, these being connected by either gears or drive belts. The REM independent spindle system, all spindles of which are right hand rotation, also eradicates the problem of any loss of power on some spindles. There’s no longer any need to strip down gear boxes and, because these are now sealed units, no possibility of oil or grease getting on to the panels, or dust getting into the motor. And, if a motor goes wrong, a replacement can be fitted in approximately two minutes.
At the time that Kingstown saw the new spindle system, in a corner of REM’s plant, it was unfinished. Kingstown had to decide whether it could trust Luigi Reguzzi to develop the new system successfully. “We believed him,” says Mike Sharp. “Reguzzi is a tremendous engineer and an honourable man. He did everything he promised”.
Terry Beckett describes the new REM system as “a bespoke machine built to Kingstown’s requirements”. It has 32 of the independent spindles that were largely responsible for clinching the deal.
Every drill that Kingstown requires is on the new REM, a system that handles all the drilling and insertion of fittings for vertical cabinet and chest panels. The simpler, horizontal panels are still handled by the company’s throughfeed borers. While the new REM currently deals with only a proportion of Kingstown’s output, it has been instrumental in reducing work in progress to around 15% of its previous level.
The new line consists of a six-station automatic panel feeder (all panels are fed through on-edge in REM machinery), followed by a machining centre which consists of two blocks each of eight independent drills, 10-position revolver head with automatic toolchanger and two horizontal drilling units with independent spindle. Next is a machining module that incorporates the double insertion of hinge plates, blocks, cams, or glue, as required. At this point the prepared panels may be transferred to the assembly department. If not, they are returned, via an automatic unit for the insertion of metal dowels for RTA furniture, to the operator.
Small footprint
It’s an intensely productive operation, housed within a comparatively small area of the Kingstown plant. REM’s small footprint was another advantage. It meant it could be easily accommodated within the current plant, especially since storage requirements for work in progress had been greatly reduced.
Modular construction allied to compact size meant that not only was the REM system swiftly installed by RW Woodmachines but it was producing panels within six days of its arrival at Kingstown. “Other machinery companies wanted four to six weeks installation time,” says Mike Sharp.
The new REM system, remotely programmed from the production office, can switch simultaneously from one machining/drilling/insertion program to another. And, should any problems arise, it can be interrogated by REM from its offices in Italy simply by dialling into a modem.
“This is superb technology that is precisely designed for today’s panel processing,” says David Thompson-Rowlands, managing director of RW Woodmachines. “It is already changing the face of wood-based furniture production, making it simpler, swifter and far more versatile and cost-effective.”
