Near the end of 2015, Windsor Windows & Doors made the decision to move vinyl Next Dimension Classic production out of the North Carolina facility and re-locate the process to West Des Moines. This increased the efficiency of the business by having all vinyl production under one roof.
By February 2016, the process was up and operational in West Des Moines. At the time, the cutting and fabrication of all parts was a very time consuming and manual process. After each length was cut from lineal, the operator then determined which notch box to use and also which of the 32 different punch dies needed to be used to finish part fabrication prior to the welding process. We realized that this process was very labor intensive and the probability for error ran high. It was determined that we could start increasing line capacity and throughput by adding automation to the sash press.
We designed and built a processing center that eliminated all the manual efforts prior to and after welding. We soon realized that our sash production could outpace our frame production.
The second step in this improvement process was to implement an optimizing saw that will cut material to pre-weld length while also performing some of the fabrication steps during the saw cycle. An additional piece of equipment was designed and built to finish the remainder of the part processing step.
This line improvement will pay off with quicker processing of material and improved overall unit quality.