All-electric tube bending machine manufacturer, Unison, has opened a new facility in Scarborough. Purpose-fitted for machine design and manufacture, the building more than doubles the production capacity of the company, and accelerates machine building times by around 15%.
“The new facility has allowed us to expand every major department in Unison – we now have more software and hardware development engineers, and more manufacturing and sales staff,” says Alan Pickering, managing director of Unison. “Our investment positions us well to cope with the growth in demand that we have been experiencing, as well as our projected expansion into new markets that we are targeting in BRIC countries.”
Located close to Unison’s previous building, the new facility gives Unison over 2,200 square metres of manufacturing space, along with two acres of surrounding land. The building interior has been remodelled to increase Unison’s manufacturing efficiency and capacity.
One of the most important new features is a dedicated flow line for building machines, fitted with a gantry crane to simplify handling and installation of large components. Tube bending machines now progress through six sequential assembly cells with application-specific tooling for each stage of the build cycle, from the basic preparation of the mechanical chassis and equipment cabinets, through the installation of electrical and mechanical components, to cabling, system commissioning and test, and finally customer acceptance. At the end of the line, machines can be rolled into containers for shipping. In the old facility, assembly time for a typical machine was 12 weeks. The organization and higher efficiency of the new flow line will reduce this to 10 weeks for a majority of the smaller machine sizes that Unison builds.
Another key new feature is an expanded metalworking machine shop, including a brand new £300,000 investment in another five-axis CNC machining centre.
