A flagship of CLT joining

In 1991, carpentry businesses from the Ulm region joined forces for their joining activities. "It does not make sense for every single company to have its own system that it subsequently only uses a few hours per week", they realized back then already. These were the beginnings of the joining center Abbundzentrum Ulm in Blaustein/DE. "By now, we are processing roughly 7000 m³/yr of bar-shaped laminated timber. Around 50% of customers are our partner enterprises. The other half are external carpentries", manager Tino Bühler reports.

Changing market

In the past few years, demand for large-scale joint CLT elements has been steadily increasing. "With our two existing K2i systems by Hundegger, however, we cannot handle large formats. In terms of width, we are restricted to 1250 mm with our larger machine", Bühler elaborates. The investment into a large processing center had been taken into consideration since 2014 already. Finally, the moment had come this summer: Hundegger delivered the new PBA (panel cutting machine) in June, six months later the first elements were processed. And it has been in operation ever since. "We have also taken a look at systems from other providers. In the end, the PBA is the most robust product on the market. Also concerning the software, Hundegger is the best provider", Bühler explains. What is more: The Abbundzentrum Ulm has been Hundegger's customer for more than 25 years now, and the collaboration has always been smooth. Since the employees know how to operate the systems coming from Hawangen, initial training was quick and simple. The goal is to join around 6000 m³/yr with the PBA.

A new hall was built to accommodate the PBA with a processing length of 42 m. The PBA in the Abbundzentrum Ulm features a portal that moves on rails by the millimeter and provides two processing zones of 16 m each which can be combined to one station. The advantage of those two zones: "The system virtually never stands still", Bühler says. A deflector is tilted up in the middle while the portal is taking care of all millings, drillings and cut-outs. Thanks to this, it is safe for employees to place down and secure the following CLT element at the second station. Speaking of securing: Here, Bühler decided to go with a classical CLT fixing method at the wood supports. "If you secure the components with vacuum suction cups the alignment is complex. The employee has to make sure that the countless suction cups do not interfere with the tools. If – like in our case – the saw is cutting into the wood supports, we can simply replace them. This is significantly cheaper."

Approaching the machine online

The engineers at the Abbundzentrum Ulm prepare their plans including all recesses with programs by Sema and Cadwork. After that, data are simply loaded into Hundegger's Cambium software that creates joining data. "The interface is working perfectly", Bühler is delighted. For comprehensive processing in the PBA, a number of tools are provided. During the tour, Bühler points out the deep-hole boring machine that can drill holes on all sides up to lengths of 1.2 m. Furthermore, there are three additional units as well as a tool changer with 15 positions.

The following investment at Abbundzentrum Ulm is already scheduled for 2019: The existing K2i by Hundegger will be replaced by two new, slightly larger K2-Industry machines. This means that also in the future, the main supplier can count on its customer's loyalty.