“Towards the end of last year we experienced a bottleneck in our workflow that has now been comprehensively resolved by the introduction of a second router,” explains Mike Hodgetts, sales and marketing Director at Porter & Woodman Group.

He adds: “This has enabled us to keep up to speed on existing work whilst allowing us to secure new business to boost future growth.”

The West Midlands-based firm has expanded its product range and mainly uses plywood and MDF to create a core range of signage products which include chalkboards, blackboards, A-Boards, menu presentation units, poster holders, point-of-sale displays for shops, and general display solutions.

The new technology that forms part of its phase one investment plans is an AXYZ 4010 CNC router, which reinforces a machine from the same manufacturer purchases thee years ago.

Analysing the importance of the investment for his company, manager of Porter and Woodman Group's CNC machining shop, Colin Inchley, says: “It is much quicker and more efficient but perhaps of greater significance it has assisted the group’s expansion and secured new jobs. The addition of the 4010 router means we can split the workflow between the two machines to ensure that at no time either is tied up on a specific job.”

Under the hood

The new router forms part of AXYZ's 4000 series and offers a work area of 1,524 x 1,220mm, which can be scaled up by steps of 610mm throughout the range, and a gantry clearance of some 150mm.

Inchley explains that the model purchased needed to be able to facilitate quick job changeover at the company and thus incorporates AXYZ's Seven-tool Automatic Change Facility. Further enhancements that reportedly swayed the investment decision is the that the 4000 series feature new servo drives and the latest helical rack and pinion drive system.

This latter enhancement is of vital importance to the evolution of AXYZ's technology portfolio, as it includes multiple gear teeth to ensure a more even distribution of the workload whilst reducing machine wear and increasing material feed rates—helping differentiate it in a heavily competitive market.

Further to this are series wide enhancements such as the latest edition A2MC Smart Console. AXYZ states that this, 'eliminates the bounce and vibration caused by sudden acceleration or deceleration often experienced with other control systems'.

A final product feature that has reportedly help Porter and Woodman Group achieve its impressive 100 percent productivity bump is AXYZ's Auto Zone Management System that is designed to provide significantly improved material hold-down capabilities while reducing, and in some cases eliminating, material wastage and machine downtime caused by incorrectly set vacuum valves.