Portland stone
producer Albion Stone has invested nearly £500,000 on its new ashlar line with
an in-line Smart-Cut SNC550 Optima bridge saw.
It is part of a £3million investment by the company
that Managing Director Michael Poultney says will ensure it continues to be the
most productive stone operation in the UK.
And it wants to be
in order to win more export orders. To that aim, it is even taking the unusual
step among British stone producers of exhibiting at Marmomacc this year (although it is not alone because
Forest Pennant is also exhibiting there). Albion’s new line comprises a
powerful grinding and polishing Levibreton KFG machine holding two,high-removal grinding
heads and four polishing heads with 15kW spindles.
The line is
followed by a flexible cutting line with belt workbench, which includes a photographic
station reading the slab dimensions, pre-optimization and loading of the work
program, automatic positioning of the slab and execution of the cuts.
Thanks to its
extensive work area and patented system with vacuum cups installed on the
special guard of the Smart-Cut SNC550 Optima CNC bridge saw, it is possible to perform
any kind of polygonal cut, minimizing material waste.
Albion says the
new line is significantly more productive than the two it has replaced. Michael
Poultney says: “Albion Stone conducted exhaustive research into the tile and
ashlar lines currently available in the market place, including visits to
several factories on the Continent.
We are confident that
the Breton line will give us an excellent high quality product to the tight
tolerances that our discerning customers now require.”
Carl Sharkey says
that from Breton UK’s viewpoint, working with such companies gives it
invaluable experience. “We feel that Breton UK is in prime position to provide innovative
and efficient solutions where stand-alone equipment is not enough,” Carl told
NSS.
But success has
brought its own problems and Technical Director Simon Bradbury says at the
beginning of this year Breton Italy was coping with a large volume of orders that
led to production delays and a knock-on of delivery delays that has left Breton UK playing catch-up.
“That said, we
always have one eye on the future and are already well advanced with plans to
expand our service team to enable us to provide the best response we can.”
And for anyone
struggling to find an engineer for a quick response when needed, Simon says:
“Not only can we look after Breton machines, but also Intermac, Sasso, GMM.”
And he says: “We hope to promote a little more proactive practice from
machine owners with regard to maintenance.
There are a lot of instances where spending a few hundred pounds every six months could have saved some customers literally thousands of pounds.”
Well, that’s all for today.
By-by
Sergio Prior
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