It’s a busy time for Ib Andresen Industri: “We’re on top of our industries and markets, and we clearly sense a high level of activity. In order to grow along with our customers – which we want to do – we need to increase our capacity. This is one reason we’re making this investment,” states Carsten Damsgaard, Sales Manager.
It exemplifies how the company is focused on preparing for the future: “Looking into the future, we see how the market demands increasing adaptability, which is what this investment contributes to by enabling us to remain adaptable in providing our value-based solutions.”
These value-based solutions include product development and logistics to supplement the core business, which is still the processing and shaping of steel and other metals.
Flexibility and bigger steel sections
The new roll-forming line is almost an exact replica of the most recent line the company invested in back in 2016, but this one has the latest technology. And it is a very deliberate choice.
“The new investment complements our existing production equipment for the machining of sectional steel in bigger dimensions in terms of cross-section width and material thickness. Large-scale construction projects in the years ahead will increasingly require the machining of sectional steel in bigger dimensions.
As a supplier, flexibility is crucial for enabling us to successfully asserting ourselves in the market. That is why we’ve ordered a system of the same make as the previous line to ensure full flexibility between the lines in terms of tooling set-up, programming and system operations in general,” explains Morten Rasmussen, Production Manager.
State-of-the-art
The entire production line totalling 75 metres comprises a conveyor belt system with dual coil unwinder, a 21-shaft automatic straightening machine and a fully automatic belt-welding machine supplied by the German company Lorenz. Slit coils are placed on the machining line from the belt-welding system before being reshaped into sectional steel and readied for further machining on the line.
Haulick+Roos supplies the 200-tonne eccentric press whose 2000 mm tool table can handle advanced, complex punching dies. The press gives the flat coil a preset perforation pattern before the coil is rolled on the roll-forming line supplied by Dreistern. The roll-forming line comprises 30 flexible rolling stations that are set-up and prepared at an external station on the production line.
Morten Rasmussen adds, “We’re currently in a bidding process involving several suppliers to close a deal for a robot cell for processing the finished steel sections. Once everything is installed and ready, we’ll have yet another state-of-the-art roll-forming line at our disposal.”
In addition to the 75-metre roll-forming line (to be delivered in the spring of 2019), Ib Andresen Industri will be receiving a new double-sided Lorenz belt system for one of the existing lines in mid-September 2018. The new belt system will increase current capacity by a factor of 2.5, significantly increasing the line’s uptime for the benefit of both capacity and lead times.