Daltons Wadkin has provided Italian crosscutting technology to Mercia Garden Products, a specialist garden building manufacturer based in North Nottinghamshire that supplies a range of timber sheds, summer houses, greenhouses, award-winning play houses, log cabins and fencing to an ever-expanding market which embraces both domestic and public authority work.
Mercia processes approximately 300,000 orders a year, and its unique range of timber buildings are despatched to all parts of the UK.
In 2015 the company’s Malcolm Marriott and Terry Waldron approached Daltons Wadkin as they were looking to increase and speed up their crosscutting capacity.
Accordingly, a number of meetings took place with Daltons Wadkin sales director Andy Walsh in order to analyse the production rates and specification required and identify a machine which would meet their demands.
Daltons Wadkin has an impressive track record in providing equipment to increase the efficiency of manufacturing processes in the timber industry, and boasts considerable experience and expertise when it comes to crosscutting systems through its long association with Salvador, an Italian manufacturer of high-speed programmable crosscutting technology.
As the main UK and Ireland distributor for Salvador, the company has supplied and installed its equipment to timber suppliers, joinery manufacturers and furniture specialists in all parts of the UK, and is used to planning and providing cutting systems and specifications to meet individual customers’ requirements.
A full working demonstration was arranged at the Daltons Wadkin Nottingham showroom so that Mercia’s team could see a Salvador machine put through its paces.
There is a number of alternative configurations available, and after examining these with Andy, the model chosen was a Salvador Superpush 250 optimising saw with twin aligners, 6200mm infeed pusher, 150mm cutting depth and a chain side loading system.
This allows the machine to run continuously with minimum effort from the operator, bar loading the timber onto the feed chains. There is also an automatic outfeed ejection system synchronised with the cutting cycle, ensuring no loss of time when cutting. The waste trapdoor activates rapidly, with the off-cuts dropping onto a waste conveyor.
The new machine has been running at Mercia’s headquarters in Sutton-on-Trent for some months now and is revolutionising the manufacturer’s process. The machine has increased Mercia’s throughput and accuracy – the S250 being PC controlled provides full cut information for each shift, and operations director Malcolm Marriott can see at a glance the impressive performance provided by his new investment.
Andy Walsh enthuses: “We were so pleased to have the opportunity of providing this superb crosscutting technology to Mercia Garden Products, and we were confident from the outset that the equipment provided would perform to – and even beyond – expectations.
“We have known Mercia for a number of years, and although we are supplying Salvador crosscuts to all parts of the UK it is especially rewarding to have this opportunity and make such an impact within our own county of Nottinghamshire.”
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