Increasing Steel Shop Throughput with Caunton Engineering

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Caunton Engineering is one of the UK's leading fully computerized structural steel contractors and a global leader in 'Just-in-Time' structural fabrication. They offer a one-stop solution to virtually every steel construction need with directly employed erection and design teams. Comprised of three Peddinghaus drill/saw tandem systems and three Peddinghaus plate processing lines, Caunton maintains a whopping 35,000 ton per year shop capacity.

Yeah, we're a family owned business. We were founded in 1969 in the village of Caunton.

Sold our first building in 1970. Come 1974, we moved out of a blacksmith's shop to another location.

We grew again, but we outgrew that. And in the late '80s, early '90s, we moved to our current location here.

We're probably arranging between 500 and 700 tons, depending on the work content.

What we've sort of done is split away from a linear form of production and into sort of a parallel level of production, in that no single machine is restrained by any process before or after it.

And so we're able to handle more material in real time quicker than we could by just a linear processing through each machine.

Quite a few years ago, we looked at the demographic on our shop. And I think our average age at the time was 55. So we took the view that we can't wait for somebody else to solve the problem. We've got to grasp the nettle and solve it ourselves.

So we opened our own training academy. And we take five young apprentices on every year.

And since we've done that over the last 10 years, our average age has gone down to about 32, 33 on the shop floor. And a lot of these guys that have come through the system are now in other areas of the business.

They may be detailing, or quantity surveying, or project management.

So we've taken the view that if you want something to change, change yourself first. Don't wait for somebody else to solve your problem.

We've been running Peddinghaus machines since the first machines we've ever bought.

We've got plate processing lines. We've got a 1500, two 2500s. Slightly different configurations. And it's a sort of iteration of the plate processing that we've got.

And then we've got four saw and drill lines of various sizes and age. We have eight Peddinghaus machines at the moment on the shop floor.

The combination of how we run our Peddinghaus machines tends to give you a better all-around throughput in the sense of each process goes on to the next.

The Advantage-2 slotting facility, carbide cutting, etc, is probably one of the best functions we've used on that machine. It saves days in labor time. And it's quite a distinct advantage.

I think the operator software has moved on from the old TDK. I think it's far more user-friendly. And I also think that the machines are far more easy to learn.

The functionality of these machines are a lot better, a lot more laid out a lot better.The operators tend to pick them up a lot easier.

The thing that sticks out now today is how fast the machines are in comparison to the older machines.

And typically, when you've got two older machines sat there with two new ones round it, it's so obvious. The difference is five or six times quicker. So it's quite mind-blowing at times.

I think the actual throughput of the latest plate machine is far more than any others that we have.

And I think that helps us every day--the speed, the accuracy, the versatility of the machine. And I think any project that we throw at it would be, you know, easily overcome.

Your downtime is far less. More precise. It's more controlled. And the cutting speeds and feeds are more balanced.

For us, it's probably reliability and speed. It's not simple machinery, but it's not too complicated for what we want it to do. There's no extra bells and whistles that get in the way. It's exciting. It's strategic.

And it's all about very small gains add up to very big wins.

We find it reliable, good levels of service. And you can sort of pick up the phone and Peddinghaus are there. I think that's how we feel.

We're sort of part of the Peddinghaus family.