At Weinig’s Ligna press conference chairman Walter Fahrenschon admitted that the international machinery market is at a low ebb. The recession pushed its first-quarter sales down 50% on the same period in 2008, “and we are ahead of the industry average, which was down 64%,” he said.
However, the downturn has not slowed Weinig’s research and development. If anything, it looks as though it’s aiming to innovate itself out of the slump, with 30 new machines unveiled at Ligna.
“One highlight is the new Powermat 2500 moulder planer,” said Neil Forbes, managing director of Weinig UK. “The market is very familiar with the Hydromat 22B; this is its successor. It runs up to 200m/min, incorporates HSK Powerlok tooling and, using PowerCom control system, can communicate directly to the toolroom for even faster set-up.”
Also making its debut was the EasyCom control software designed to make machine set-up ‘as easy as using a pocketcalculator’. “It’s all about getting hi-tech, sophisticated automation to the smaller customer,” said Mr Forbes.
Another focus was the second generation Conturex automated window manufacturing centre which undertakes routing, sanding, sawing, shaping and drilling. Using the PowerGrip clamping system, said to mimic the action of the human hand, the centre handles batch or one-off production with the same efficiency.
At the other end of the scale, Weinig also showed its 5.4m cutting length EconoRip 310, a pared down version of the FlexiRip.
