My name is Kirk Hoak and I am the Production Facilities Manager here at Northern Air Systems. We specialise in mission-critical HVAC units. Very rarely do we get an order for 20 units, the majority is small batch. We started in LVD equipment with a Strippit. Then we went to a 2 kW fibre laser. The 2 kW didn't really cut the 3/8 plate like we want so we went to the 6 kW. Now we can do so many different thicknesses of material, the speed, and we've also added the 6 tower.
Automation was important for us just to streamline our process, to get the efficiency through our facility. We run one shift but we will set our laser to run when we leave. When we come in at six o'clock, it's there to be sorted and ready for the guys to fab. Before loading and unloading, it was a bottleneck for us. Implementing this 6 kW laser with the tower streamlined our process and the cutting aspect of it dramatically.
We are very excited about the new tube laser. Right now, a lot of our units have internal frames and then we wrap with sheet metal. We cut on a CNC band saw, which, on average, can take up to five or six hours to cut some of our frames. With the new LVD tube laser, I should be able to get that down to about half an hour to 45 minutes.
Efficiency is going to go through the roof for us.
We'll be running that tube laser one to two days to get our week's worth.
We build to such a high standard, the quality has to be there. LVD equipment helps us maintain our tolerances, bend allowances and tighter tolerances with some of the critical parts that we have to build for our air conditioners. With the equipment that we have, we have the ability to grow. We can cut lights out day in and day out, seven days a week.
