Dan Nicholson, director of sealing & polymer at Eriks, said: “These new machines have given us greater capacity and also increased efficiency. It means we can take on contracts that we weren’t able to before.”
Costing more than £120,000, the new Taurus 300 Steel to Steel Press has been purchased as Eriks has seen growth in the use of sheet materials such as nickel reinforced graphite and silicon impregnated glass fibres.
According to Eriks, these materials require a high closure force per unit length. The new 300 tonne Taurus machine will improve finished quality and also reduce running costs in comparison with the previous machine used.
A £190,000 Travelling Head Press CPC-BT60 has been purchased with the goal of improving efficiency and safety though it will also allow for additional sales. Long running jobs will switch to the travelling head machine from the traditional roller presses, which present health and safety risks and require tall, strong operators.
Meanwhile, a new Kiss-Cut Press ABC60 will support additional sales and an Infinite 6010 CNC Router has replaced a 20-year-old machine that had no auto-tool change facility and was, therefore, rarely used. The new machine will help support increased business with a major central heating company.
There has also been investment in the warehouse including reconfiguration of racking, lifting equipment, packing machines and LED lighting.
Nicholson added: “The warehouse changes all improve health and safety while producing efficiency gains through optimisation of processes, as well as environmental and sustainability benefits.”
The Barnsley expenditure is part of a £21m infrastructure investment by Eriks spread across our technical services and product supply, headlined by a centre in Oldbury, West Midlands.
The centre has improved product range supporting faster and more accurate supply of products.
This facility is now fully operational and includes a 11,000m2 warehouse space backed by an advanced warehouse management system. It has 21 vertical lifts, more than 400m of high-speed conveyors, scanning and weighing systems for every order and Industry 4.0 configured IT infrastructure with real-time monitoring.