Problems with labour leading to automation: Automation no longer the domain of the larger fabricator

It has been assumed in the industry generally that medium and small fabricators would not be able to spend the money to automate and would therefore gradually disappear or down-size to small efficient units, however this has not proved so.

It appears, listening to feed-back from the actual fabricators themselves, that there is an even greater shortage of operators of an acceptable quality than ever before. There is a small hard core of good workers but not enough of them and this chronic shortage affects nearly the whole country.

Fabricators at the end of their tether are increasingly saying ‘enough is enough’ and turning to automation to some degree or other.

Automation

The first part of the process that tends to be automated is cutting and prepping where machines like the Stuga Flowline are called on to reduce operators, reduce skill and improve quality, consistency and efficiency. Stuga have sold 62 Flowlines in less than five years, a rate of more than one per month and with alternative machines offered by Rapid, Schirmer, Elumatec and Haffner this means that the number of fully automatic cutting and prepping lines is clearly now well over the 150 mark.

Stuga have also had huge success with their stand alone Autocut saw centre (nearly 200 sold) and Ecoline prepping centre (over 30 sold). Again these products reduce labour and skill whilst improving quality and efficiency.

After cutting and prepping, welding and cleaning is the next area becoming more sophisticated with an explosion of new equipment from companies like Winmac, who offer high quality machinery ranges from companies like Hollinger and Rotox. At the end of the fabrication line there has been a big increase in purchases of bead measuring and cutting equipment, again to reduce reliability on labour and address the skills shortage.

In the first two years of selling the Flowline, Stuga found the fabricator size to be mostly in the range of 500 windows per week plus, but three recent sales have been to fabricators in the 200 – 350 windows per week category. At the same time the larger fabricators, making 600 – 2,000 plus are also being forced to purchase more lines in order to handle the same skills shortage.

Traditionally there was always the philosophy that if you have a machine capable of 700 windows per week then you have to be able to produce that volume to justify it. It is now clear to smaller fabricators that is not so. The 200 to 600 per week fabricators utilise the machine for the required number of hours per day and then the operator goes onto other work. Good cutting and prepping equipment is highly flexible and easy to use, making this approach simple to run with.

With a continuous inflow of new legislation from Europe making it more and more difficult to discipline, or even get rid of bad labour, it is becoming more and more imperative for fabricators to automate in order to either reduce the need for manual staff or release them from automated areas to use in other parts of the production process; also to be able to offer good quality windows consistently in an ever more demanding and consolidating market.

There is no shortage of industry consultants quick to point out that throwing money at new machines is not always the answer but it is becoming clear that, as long as a professional analysis is made and the right purchases result, automation is clearly the way forward as the industry becomes more competitive and more demanding.

The survival of the fittest will require good management as well as good machines, but there is no getting away from the basic need to improve by investment in plant. Every industrialised country has only improved its standard of living as a result of periods of upward investment ever since the industrial revolution. This scenario applies as much today as it always has. The window industry may only be a small part of the British economy but the result of sensible investment brings the same outcome.