In 2007 it was decided to evaluate and re-organize the production process. After evaluating what equipment was now available on the market to best served the needs of Vollack it was decided to replace the old sawing and drilling system with a Voortman system at the Karlsruhe facility. To achieve our new production target and still leave capacity for the future it was decided to install the sawing and drilling systems in a separate configuration.
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As a result of unprecedented growth in recent years Voortman embarked on a new expansion to the existing machine shop and assembly facilities. This growth has been driven by Voortman’s global sales and marketing efforts and the diverse range of products we have to offer to various markets throughout the world.
The new addition of over 8.000m² will primarily be used to assemble the additional products recently added to the product line. These are the new Shotblasting systems, Plate lines, Structural Burning systems the Structural Drill lines.
A further expansion to the facility and offices will be completed by fall of October 2008.
Despite the good production planning at Thircon, there were some bottle-necks in their production process. After a thorough study it was clear that the saw capacity was insufficient and that the production of fittings was inadequate compared to the rest of the production.
Last week, the renewed V600 drilling system has been exhibited for the first time at Machtool in Poland. At the booth of our Polish dealer HEG lots of visitors showed much interest in the V600. The new drilling system is fitted with an automatic tool changer. The toolchanger has capacity for five drills, which can be changed fully automatically. Also the drive technoligy is changed. The V600 is now provided with servomotors and servo-drives. Therefore it is possible to use not only HSS drills but also carbide tipped drills as a result of which the drilling speed has increased by at least 300%!
From 14 - 17 May Voortman was present at the exhibition Lamiera in Bologna. Both our area sales manager Pieter van Grol as our new sales manager for Italy, Dipl.Ing. Franco Pinelli were present at the exhibition. Many fabricators visited the Voortman booth and we received lots of requests. Voortman did also sell their first machines in Italy!
Like many other steel fabricators Fermeco strives for increased productivity and efficiency. In 2004 the company invested in a Voortman V613 drilling & sawing line to automate the facility. Recently Voortman installed a V250 plate punching & drilling system at Fermeco to automated the processing of plates.
Fisher Engineering, a company with over half a century of experience in the steel construction industry, is currently one of the largest steel fabricators in the United Kingdom. The company is based in Ballinamallard, Northern Ireland and has a production area of 23.000 m². Fisher processes annually approximately 25.000 tonnes of steel. Fisher participated in a number of major projects, both in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Some of the projects include. The Victoria Square Shopping Mall, Odyssey Arena and Waterfront Hall in Belfast, the National Conference Center (7.000 tons) and The Point Village, an office, retail and hotel complex (15.000 tonnes) in Dublin and BSkyB complex (2.100 tonnes) in London.
AISC recently requested leading suppliers of technology to the industry to present recent changes and also suggest look at the future of structural steel fabrication. Our Adrian Morrall , President of Voortman Corporation presented innovations that the Voortman Engineering group had designed and implemented in recent years and also future developments in the pipeline.
The presentations were to educate the industry on the latest technology available. The number one message was clearly the advancements in how some machinery manufactures can now communicate and hand down critical data to the next stage in the fabrication process. Also discussed at length as was the BOM data from the Tekla 3D steel detailing model to Fabtrol and then fabrication status back to the model.
Also presented was how the 3D design or detailing information from the model is directly feed CNC machines. The technology being developed on materials handling and placement, automated welding, and the scribing and marking functionality demonstrate.
Many fabricators visited the Voortman booth after the presentation to see firsthand the technology discussed.
The sales of the Voortman machinery throughout the world is continually increasing, to keep ahead of this growth Voortman is expanding several departments not only in the offices but also the factory. Voortman is now building a brand new factory next door to the existing office and workshop. In addition to this, an expansion of the existing factory is soon to take place.
With several large reference projects, for example CSM Suiker Unie and Akzo Nobel, Staalbouw Smid Hoogkerk (SSH) is, for sure, not a small steel fabricator in The Netherlands! With 55 employees this Dutch company handles projects in various areas including industrial, marine- and utility construction. SSH has over one hundred years of experience with steel fabrication and has a long history with lots of expansions and innovations.
Recently another important decision had to be made; to automate their factory or subcontract the drilling, sawing, punching and shearing of steel. Subcontracting would keep the organizational costs flexible, but SSH opted for new flexible production machinery with as much latest technical innovation as possible.
The Voortman team recently installed a sawing, drilling and shot blasting line at the factory of M-Profil. M-Profil is a Croatian company, which was founded in 1995 and began as a company that provided an assembly service. Now, M-Profil specialises in the production of steel constructions including roof and wall panel systems. With a production capacity of 2 million sq.m of metal sheets and 12.000 tonnes of steel constructions a year and 340 employees, M-Profil is one of the largest steel construction companies in Croatia. Recently M-Profil invested in a complete new fabrication facility, including a new workshop and machinery.
One of our new customers, Pt Bukit Jaya Abadi, based in Surabaya, Indonesia, is expanding their current production from 60,000 tons/year to 120,000 tons/year, making them one of the leading fabricators in Indonesia. After visiting all main suppliers in Europe, Mr. Ir. J.E. Sendjaja (CEO) invested in 2 fully automated Voortman beam lines with the possibility to expand even further in a later stage. One of the main reasons for the purchase being the easy availability of spare parts compared to other brands, the full automation and the consistent high output.
Recently we've added this new saw to our product range. This band saw makes short work of bundles of steel and heavy profiles. The VB1550 has a working range of up to 1.500 x 600 mm and is by far the largest saw in our sawing range!
The VB1550 is a part of our VB-Range of horizontal band saws. Like the other saws in this range, the VB1550 is provided with a material sensor, hydraulic blade tension, powered rotary brush to remove swarf and hydraulic clamps on both sides of the saw band, with the saw band being lubricated with mist coolant.
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