In an effort to provide our customers with the highest quality of products, the West Des Moines manufacturing facility of Windsor Windows & Doors has purchased a new Thermwood CNC router for our patio door production line. This piece of machinery is an exact duplicate of the one our sister plant in North Carolina has been using with much success.
Chris Walden, our Divisional Engineering Manager, has made many improvements to our previous routing capabilities with both the programming and fixturing of this machine. All programs can be easily run by the operators using a simple and visual scannable barcode system. This will help alleviate the dependency on the “tribal knowledge” that was required to operate the old CNC. These programs can also be updated for both locations remotely and instantly, should there be a design change.
The setup of the routing table itself will not only improve quality, but also aid in our ongoing efforts to become more lean. The biggest change in table design is that the parts are clamped from the bottom up instead of the top down. This results in less variation of the routes due to variation in the wood parts. The table is also divided into different zones so that multiple parts, both frame and panel, can be run simultaneously. This feature allows us to move toward our goal of one piece flow.
West Des Moines has been working diligently to maintain a high level of quality for our customers. We believe that the addition of this new CNC router will be very beneficial in that regard and are excited to have it up and running!