Tool manufacturer Aiguisatek benefited from the experience of the Swabian grinding specialist VOLLMER during the coronavirus pandemic. The VOLLMER CHD 270 grinding machine with its ND 250 loader enabled Aiguisatek to continue manufacturing its carbide circular saws without an operator and around the clock. From the very beginning, the company, founded in 1986, trusted the grinding technology of the Biberach-based machine manufacturer.
“Our company suffered a 30 per cent loss at the height of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions,” said Lisa Goulet, owner, and manager of Aiguisatek, a Canadian tool manufacturer. “Since our staff had to stay home, we took on the challenge of keeping production low with two people, which we nonetheless succeeded in thanks to automated production with VOLLMER grinding technology.”
The VOLLMER CHD 270 grinding machine with its ND 250 loader allowed for unmanned manufacturing and machining of carbide circular saw blades around the clock. The loading carriages of the ND 250 robotic system can accommodate up to 450 saw blades with a maximum load of 1.5 tons.
The CHD 270 and ND 250 duo that Aiguisatek received in 2019 achieves the same daily output with two employees operating seven manual machines in parallel for 10 hours. As a result, the tool manufacturer could triple the quantity of its machined circular saws from 350 to now 1000 circular saw blades per week.
In addition, Aiguisatek achieves a higher quality of its circular saw blades with the CHD 270. One decisive factor is the automatic scanning of the saw blades, which guarantees a uniform grinding quality in repetitive processes. The test reports allow the customer to understand the life cycle of the carbide circular saw blades from the production to the final sharpening.
Because the VOLLMER machine allows each cutting edge to be sharpened with minimal abrasion, Aiguisatek can sharpen its saw blades up to 25 times; on average, this is twice the quota of the competition. Since 1986, when the company was founded, Aiguisatek has relied on VOLLMER’s sharpening know-how. The first Akemat sharpening robot is still used every day.
In 2013, a new VOLLMER CP 200 sharpening machine arrived in the small town of Delson from Biberach.
“At the time, the demand for scoring saw blades had increased dramatically, and it was taking up to 15 minutes to machine each saw with the Akemat manually,” said Jonathan Riberdy. “The purchase of the CP 200 allowed us to both reduce production time to less than four minutes, increase the quality of sharpening, and produce circular saw blades with complex geometries.”
Customers use Aiguisatek’s circular saws to machine various materials such as wood, metal, and composite materials. About 90 per cent of regular customers are from the wood-processing industry, among them furniture and window manufacturers and companies from the construction industry.
Source: https://woodindustry.ca/
