After a fire that completely destroyed the company building on March 1, 2020, operations restarted at the of May at A&D Houtbewerking, a Dutch producer of wooden floors, renowned for the good fit and consistent quality of its panels. For this new start, the company purchased three DSB Compact XM thin-cutting band saws exactly the same machines they had before, from Wintersteiger, the Austrian manufacturer of woodworking machinery and plants.
Stefan Hengelhaupt
The collaboration started over from where it had been interrupted, based on a technology that A&D Houtbewerking have come to appreciate over the years. “After buying the first Compact – said Dirkjan van Vliet, founder of A&D Houtbewerking – we immediately realized that, compared to the previous models, the band saw from Wintersteiger is faster and the precision of the top layers is much better“. These benefits encouraged the Dutch company to make a new purchase, ordering the second machine in 2017, few months after the first one, and the third machine in 2018, creating a more and more efficient line.
“We were the first to have this solution – van Vliet continued – and it has brought huge benefits. As this technology is very efficient, one employee can operate three machines, while the other guys can do something else. An additional benefit is increased production. We produce around 100,000 square meters per year and with the Compact we can optimize the entire process, while reducing waste and costs”.
Benefits are not limited to production, but also extend to after-sales service: the saw blades are sent directly to the Wintersteiger factory in Arnstad for sharpening.
NEW DEEP GRINDING MACHINE
Besides the collaboration with A&D Houtbewerking, the German manufacturer also announced an investment of 550,000 euro in a deep grinding machine to be installed at Arnstadt. This machine will significantly increase capacity: in the future, it will be possible to produce an additional one million linear meters of band saw blades per year.
With this second deep grinding system, Wintersteiger intends to use the additional deep grinding machines to produce more saws for the metal sector, in addition to food and joiner band saws. “The first deep grinding machine went into operation in 2018 and is currently running at more than 100 % capacity. Therefore, we needed a second machine to have the flexibility to focus more heavily on the metal band saw product group,” said Stefan Hengelhaupt, ceo at Wintersteiger. “All of our machines are technologically state of the art, and we are expanding our machinery on an ongoing basis. We don’t want to stand still, we intend to continue developing our market leading position”.
