Investing in length gives record-breaking payback time

Lindab Profil is part of the Lindab Group and is located in the town of Jels in Denmark. The company manufactures and markets components for the construction industry. With around 110 employees Lindab Profil serves the Nordic and German markets, producing both garage and industrial doors as well as components and profiles for roofing and cladding. A major area is roof and wall flashings, in painted hardwearing sheet metal. Lindab Profil provides a standard range of profiles, but around 80% of the production consists of special profiles customized according to specific requirements.

Personnel-intensive manufacturing process
Until now the company has used traditional folders for manufacturing profiles, a great many being 3-meter profiles that require two operators to run the machine together.
–Labor costs were rising and we needed a high-performing, well-coordinated team in order to achieve and maintain consistent high quality, says Per Clausen, department supervisor.

Thalmann has the answer
Production technician Jens Thyssen at Lindab began looking for other ways to expand capacity, increase throughput and lower production costs. It was soon clear that a machine that could fold in both directions, up and down, offered major advantages. A number of machine manufacturers were invited to look at Lindab’s 68 standard profiles. Thalmann delivered the best results, succeeding with almost every profile without adjustments. The choice was made to go ahead and invest in a Thalmann TD200 6.4 meter double folder.

Efficient and easy to run
–Our double folder gives us a whole range of new opportunities, says Jens. The machine is easily operated by a single operator thanks to the handling table and gripper fingers that hold the material throughout the entire folding process. With a machine length of over 6 meters and a smart positioning of the gripper fingers we can now fold longer profiles of course, but we can also run two 3-meter or three 2-meter profiles simultaneously. An enormous increase in productivity.

-The operating system is simple and easy to use, says Chris Plauborg, operator. The graphic programming is logical and very flexible. It was easy to become a Thalmann-operator, I had only been at Lindab for just over a week when the machine arrived. Two days after it had been installed I was folding our own orders.

-Yes, the installation went exceptionally smooth, says Jens. Thanks to a stable construction and to Thalmann’s excellent staff it was really easy. Due to the pandemic the follow-up visit from Thalmann was delayed for almost two years. We then got a software update, that shortens hemming time by 7(!) seconds. This “gave” us two extra production weeks per year.

-As things stand, we manage our current production volume on one shift, says Per, and we are already down to a payback time of 3.5 years. When we get up to full two-shifts we will in principle recoup the investment in 1½-2 years compared with a traditional folder!

Wholly integrated production process with nuIT
We have even implemented the nuIT software for designing and making fittings and profiles, continues Jens. With the help of nuProduction and integrating with our own ERP-system, we have streamlined and integrated production from customer order to invoicing and accounting. Our sales team can draw up, enter quantities, lengths and colors for every profile for an order, then pack and send on-line directly to our workshop. We then plan production and when we are ready to start the folding, programs are created in the system and transferred automatically to the control system in our double folder: we just load the material and press the pedal. There is zero risk for manual errors anywhere between order and finished profile. As nuProduction is completely integrated with our ERP-system we have no manual data. Everything including material, machine utilization etc is immediately ready for invoicing. We are making big administrative gains and we are getting everything right from start.

Phenomonal support
-Lastly just a word about the level of service provided by Thalmann, adds Jens. We have had hardly any glitches at all, but if we have any questions we always get an answer within 15 minutes. If anything in the machine or its software needs adjusting, we need only to press the blue button on the electrical cabinet. The Thalmann support team can then access the control system, make the necessary checks and then make any adjustments needed. We are really very impressed by their service capacity.

The combination Thalmann/nuIT has really heightened our entire throughput, from order reception, through production, to invoicing.