Summary
• Malcolm Cuthbertson studied production engineering.
• His first exposure to the timber sector was on a university work placement.
• He designed and equipped a window factory in his 20s.
• He believes Weinig’s Cube planer is an industry-changing breakthrough.

Malcolm Cuthbertson has oil in his blood and sawdust under his fingernails. He’s an engineering enthusiast who has worked at the cutting edge of timber processing technology throughout a 28-year career. Small wonder that he’s relishing the new role he took on last October, as managing director of Michael Weinig UK.

Asked what qualities he most admires in Weinig, where he’d already worked for 12 years in sales, ultimately as UK regional sales manager, and he lists professionalism and dedication to quality. But he really starts to enthuse when it comes to the resources at Weinig HQ in Tauberbischofsheim in Germany devoted to R&D. It’s a commitment, he said, which has resulted in game-changing technologies that have altered the way the wood processing industry works.

“Weinig doesn’t copy, it innovates. It designs from the ground up,” he said. “The focus is also not just on individual pieces of kit. It’s on providing complete solutions to technical challenges.”

Set his view of the company against his own CV, and it does look like a natural fit.

His interest in things technological started during his teenage years and he took his degree in production engineering at Nottingham. That led to his first exposure to the level of technology then used in wood processing.

Work placement

“It was a four-year degree, with a one-year work placement,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “One came up at Rippers, a mass casement window producer and, as I’d always liked wood, I applied.”

The factory was hardly state of the art. “At college we were already programming CNC equipment,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “But at Rippers there was hardly a computer to be found!”

While it may not have been the most modern manufacturing environment, however, his time there, and particularly the opportunities he saw for applying new technology, made their mark and, after graduation, he accepted a full-time job at the company.

“I could have gone into the metal sector, which was already technically up to scratch, but I saw the potential of what Rippers could do – and I like a challenge!” he said.

It turned out to be a formative experience as he soon he found himself involved in the company’s upgrade to an automated production line, including the most advanced CNC machining centre in the UK.

“It was truly ground breaking,” he said. “It cost £350,000 – a colossal sum at the time – but when it was complete, Rippers was able to cut work in progress from £1.2m to £350,000. It was a culture change, enabling it to introduce just-in-time delivery.”

Rippers’ new plant also put down a marker for competitors.

“Similar lines were soon being installed elsewhere, some using Weinig technology,” he said.

Five years later, Mr Cuthbertson was presented with an even more daunting task by his new employer, Allan Brothers in Berwick.

“They wanted me to build a factory to make 2,500 windows a week,” he said. “I had £2.5m and was told to sell the old site, build the new one and equip it. For someone in their 20s it was a fantastic opportunity and I was able to buy the best technology, including Weinig.”

Technical consultant

The new plant lived up to expectations, but Allan Bros– now a successful part of Invido – ran into post-MBO debt problems. A company ‘doctor’ asked Mr Cuthbertson to manage the factory he’d built, but after a while he decided to set up as a technical consultant. Over a couple of years he worked with most of the big name window makers, advising on technology and production systems. In this time, he recommended a lot of Weinig equipment, and when he was offered a sales position with the company he didn’t hesitate.

“I was just impressed with their whole approach,” he said. “Every Weinig machine

I’d recommended worked – a recommendation in itself.”

Initially he focused on Weinig’s Grecon and Dimter finger-jointers and cross-cuts. Then, after intensive training in Germany, he took on the whole product portfolio, becoming regional sales manager in 2004.

Turning to the new job, he acknowledges it wasn’t the easiest time to take over from predecessor Neil Forbes. But, while the post-recession machine market remains tough, it has improved significantly from 2009, when global wood technology sales slumped 60%.

“2011 saw a healthy improvement and we’ve set ambitious targets for 2012, Weinig UK’s 30th anniversary,” said Mr Cuthbertson.

His confidence, he said, is partly due to Weinig’s “commitment to the solution sale”. “We develop long-term relations with customers, We supply a machine, then support it.”

Technical innovation

The other reason for his confidence is Weinig’s continuing dedication to pushing technical boundaries. One resulting mould-breaker of recent years, now gaining a growing UK following, is the Conturex window line, which simultaneously allows high capacity and bespoke production. “It’s the sort of technology I couldn’t have dreamed of when I started – timber in one end, fully machined, finished components out the other,” he said. “It’s a hefty price tag at £500,000, but embrace the philosophy and the benefits are colossal.”

Undoubtedly the biggest splash of late, however, has been made by the Cube. This compact, ‘plug and play’ pre-programmable four-side planer requires minimal manual intervention, replaces tool head with simpler blade changing, uses 60% less extraction energy than existing machines, can be moved by trolley and even decked out in the operator’s livery – a “pimp my Cube” service.

“Every 20 years a technology revolutionises the industry: throughfeed moulding in the 60s; Weinig quick change powerlock tooling in the 80s and now the Cube,” said Mr Cuthbertson. “It appeals to users large and small and our conversion of enquiries to sales is exceptional.”

Boding well for the future

Other moves that bode well for the future, he said, are the development of Weinig’s sophisticated, but simple to use, MillVision plant planning and management software and the Uniline range of “very competitively priced” standardised machines, designed to “get customers on the Weinig ladder”.

Then there’s Weinig’s 2010 acquisition of HolzHer. Mr Cuthbertson enthuses about the marriage of the former’s solid woodworking knowledge, with HolzHer’s panel processing machinery expertise and says it is already bearing fruit, in the form of solid wood CNC centres, for instance.

“HolzHer is also at the forefront in automated handling, such as ‘chaotic warehousing’ systems, where panels are stacked randomly in a loading station to save space and the system loads them to the machine as required.”

Mr Cuthbertson is married with two children and relaxes by cycling and following rugby. But his work is clearly a pleasure too. Asked whether he’s happy he took the new job and he simply holds out his hands and smiles.