Sumitomo Demag (SHI) - A brush with precision
25/04/2016 Sumitomo (SHI) Demag
Northern Ireland injection moulder Denroy has 100% availability and 20% less downtime after investing in two new Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Systec moulding machines. Producing more than half a million handles annually for Denman branded hairbrushes, the repeatability and enhanced control enables the Bangor-based plant to maintain its infamous glossy handle finish still favoured by hairdressers the world over.Headquartered in Bangor, Northern Ireland, Denroy Group is the parent company of Denroy Plastics, a manufacturer of precision plastic parts. With a fleet of 26 moulding machines, Denroy Plastics performs general trade moulding and makes components for the haircare, aerospace and medical industries.
Also belonging to the Denroy Group is Denman International, a global brand of haircare products, most notably the Denman hairbrushes once endorsed by Vidal Sassoon himself. Denroy Plastics is contracted to mould handles for its sister company's hairbrushes and in recent years the volume of handles required by Denman has grown significantly.
This increase in demand has come about as a result of market growth. Production of the Denman hairbrushes, which are supplied to hairdressers and retailers across the globe, has increased by 50% since 2011. In addition, Denman's decision in 2013 to 'reshore' most of its manufacturing from the Far East back to Bangor meant more moulding work was coming in Denroy's direction.
"Denman had sourced some products in the Far East, but continuity and consistency of supply was becoming a problem," explains Mike McGrath, engineering manager with Denroy Plastics.
"The hairbrush handles are quite tricky to produce because of the very high quality, high gloss finish that is required. From a tooling point of view they are quite sophisticated as they have collapsible cores," he said.
To cope with the upturn in demand, in 2013, Denroy Plastics replaced one of its oldest injection moulders with a new Sumitomo Demag 160-tonne hydraulic injection moulding machine - the company's first investment in new moulding kit in 15 years.
"We'd had the old machine since 1989. It had done a lot of hours and was breaking down frequently. It needed replacing," says Mike.
He continues: "We've traditionally been a Sumitomo Demag house - over 50% of the machines in our moulding department are Demag and our working relationship spans three decades. Operator familiarity is high on our list of criteria when buying new equipment as it means the training and learning is much less than it would be with a rival machine."
The NCV Systec 160/520-840 moulding machine was integrated with a Sepro robot to remove parts from the mould, two or four impressions at a time, and place them onto a conveyor. Due to the highly polished surface of the handles, this has to be done using vacuum cup effectors.
On installing the new injection moulding machine, Denroy straightaway noticed an improvement in line availability.
"Even though cycle time remained the same, there was a 20% reduction in downtime. The Systec 160/520-840 has given us 100% availability, as we can guarantee it will be running reliably from the moment it is switched on," notes Mike.
He has also been impressed with the sophisticated NC5 control system, which is characterised by an intuitive control concept combined with a touch screen. It provides operators with a visualisation of the injection molding process to facilitate control over the process.
"This sophisticated control system gives us greater control over the process and excellent repeatability. There are many more visual graphs to enable deeper analysis of inputs and resulting outputs. The information layout is user friendly and flexible with all of the relevant product information accessible via one single page. The page numbers are all aligned to the previous NCIV version of the software aiding familiarity," he said.
Yet, even with the new injection moulder fully available, Denroy still needed additional capacity to keep up with demand, prompting the company to invest in a second Sumitomo Demag NCV Systec 160/520-840 injection moulder in 2015.
"Whilst the first machine restored reliability, the second gave us more capacity. We're now producing half a million hairbrush handles every year. We don't have any concerns about meeting customer demands both in terms of volume and quality, thanks to the reliable performance of the Sumitomo machines," ends Mike.
Denman brushes are sold in 60 countries, but there's still scope for export growth claims the company, with China being eyed as their next big target.
For more information, please contact:
Nigel Flowers
Managing Director
Sumitomo (SHI) Demag
Accent House
Triangle Business Park
Wendover Road
Stoke Mandeville
HP22 5BL
Tel: +44 1296 739500
Email: nigel.flowers@dpg.com
Web: uk.sumitomo-shi-demag.eu
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