Luxury boatbuilder Princess Yachts International plc is operating two Rye CMS CNC routers to cope with increasing orders and a wide variety of bespoke work.
The company decided to buy two MA CNC routers for its Coypool woodworking and furniture components plant in Plympton because production schedules were getting tighter, with several components orders of equal priority competing for machine time.
Project engineer Richard Bushell said: “Our major production problem is the wide variety of our range of boats and their alternative interiors. Each boat is made to order and individually fitted out, so we have a very large number of different timber components that have to be machined as required.”
Machine features which the company found impressive included their twin tables designed to shuttle rather than rotate, plus the vacuum holding power to de-tag components by machine instead of manually.
Working on a day shift, the two machines can produce more output than two older CNC routers on a double-day shift.
The introduction of the machines necessitated new mechanical handling equipment, introduced through Marlift of Plymouth, to improve health and safety and production efficiency. Total investment for the machines and handling equipment was in the region of £260,000.
