The Danish seating furniture manufacturer Søren Lund Furniture has digitised its cutting room with cutting technology and software from Zünd.
Their Zünd G3 2XL-3200 digital flatbed cutting solution is equipped with an Over Cutter Camera (OCC) and a cradle feeder for fabric rolls. The cradle feeder with edge control ensures tension free feeding of flexible, stretchy textiles onto the cutter. A cutter extension allows the operator to pick the cut parts while the machine is cutting the next sequence. The large cutting area of 2740 x 3200 mm gives space for big leather hides.
Better utilisation of materials, reduction of the production time by half, and physical relief of employees. These were the expectations for the cutter when Søren Lund Furniture bought it – and they are well on their way to being fulfilled. ‘With the savings on manual labour and materials, the cutter will pay itself home in a matter of years, and with a lifespan of 15+ years, the purchase is very profitable for Søren Lund Furniture’, Head of Production Lotte Brath explained. ‘Previously, workers could manually cut up to three couches in one day. This number significantly increased with the Zünd G3 Cutter.’
Using the OCC and MindCUT software from Zünd, the leather hides are captured and the pre-marked defects are automatically detected. The operator then selects the model to be cut, and in a matter of seconds, MindCUT has nested the parts the most efficient way on the hide. The operator is also able to nest parts from multiple models on the same leather hide. This optimises the utilisation of the leather hides by up to 20%. With many hundreds of hides to be cut on an annual basis, the savings become significant.
It has also made a difference in terms of relieving employees from physical overload. The conveyor function of the extension table pulls the heavy leather hide up on the table, and the employees avoid lifts and stressful working positions.
Where many other furniture companies move production out of the country, Søren Lund Furniture takes pride in keeping it in Denmark, using Danish subcontractors and hiring locally.
In the past, finding workers for production was no problem – but now it is a different story. Young people are less interested in the manual production processes within the furniture industry, and especially people for manual hand cutting are hard to find. Once found, it can take several years for them to master the craft sufficiently. So, for Søren Lund Furniture, the manual cutting process was becoming a serious bottleneck.
A person who cuts manually by hand must know each model and template to figure out how best to utilise the material. However, a cutter operator can simply select a model and let the machine handle the rest. With a minimum of training, everyone can learn to operate the cutter, making it very flexible.
When you look around the production area, you see walls covered with cardboard templates that have been used to cut furniture manually. They have been continuously added throughout the years and are indispensable to the production. However, they are vulnerable to fire and theft. So, also here, there were significant benefits by switching to a Zünd cutter.
As part of the transition from manual to automatic cutting, the templates have been digitised. For this, a Photo Digitiser from Zünd has been used. The software automatically generates a cutting curve from a photo of the template. The moment they are digitised, they are available for the cutter and can be secured for future use.
‘A reason for choosing Zünd was the good dialogue. Zünd managed to meet our requirements by presenting a convincing and high-quality complete solution for leather and textile, combined in one cutter. Also, we were able to test the cutter in Zünd’s Danish demo centre in Odder, and experience for ourselves how it worked with the materials we use. Together with Zünd, we chose a hard and software solution that suits our current needs and at the same time allows for an increase in capacity. In case our cutting needs increase significantly, the machine can be upgraded with an extra cutter extension or an ‘offline nesting’ for increased productivity. So we are ready for the challenges of the future’, Brath said.
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