Gulf Construction Online - Panel fabrication set for a revolution

Glass & Aluminium

Panelbuilder played a pivotal role in the construction of Khalifa Stadium, Qatar.

Panel fabrication set for a revolution

01 October 2005

Arevolutionary CNC system has been developed which is expected to make a dramatic impact on the cladding industry throughout the Middle East.

Two of the first companies to acquire it – Arabian Profile of Sharjah and Alutec of Doha – claim to have achieved a five-fold increase in production capacity already.
The AXYZ PanelBuilder combines a triple-spindle router system with breakthrough software, both custom-made for the cladding market. The multi-headed hardware outperforms conventional single-headed or tool changing machines while the system software has a similar effect on drawing and programming schedules, says a company spokesman.
He explains: “With the new system, the benefits for ACM (aluminium composite materials) fabricators are enormous and so are the financial savings. The panels no longer have to be moved from one station to another and the system completely eliminates many other time-consuming manual tasks. The triple spindle router can groove, drill and cut out the finished panel in one flawless action, leaving the panel ready to be folded.”
“The panels are held down by a strong vacuum system and can be placed and squared easily upon the routing bed by using a pop-up pin system which drops down prior to the panel being processed.
“PanelBuilder’s software package is a true industry innovation, drastically reducing the front-end drawing and programming time required to create the NC (numerical control) code that drives the router. The software allows a CAD operator to simultaneously create both the panel blanks and the associated NC toolpaths.
“The 3D element of the package allows more complex panels to be drawn, visualised and finally unfolded, thus providing the dimensions and bend allowance associated with the selected material. The nesting capacity of the PanelBuilder software guarantees sheet optimisation and the system can cope with the most complex panel geometry. Once drawn, the panels can be brought back up, replicated or edited.
“Before the PanelBuilder was developed, every single panel variation required its own individual template. With conventional CNC systems, the long lead-time involved in creating a separate program for each panel type represents a laborious task and huge time commitment, particularly on larger projects,” he adds.
Facades division manager of Euroclad, Nick Jenkins, points out: “Earlier, creating CNC programs used to take up most of our draughtsmen’s time, but with the PanelBuilder they can do it much, much quicker. The system lets us visualise panels in 3D and then fold out the diagram and create CNC code automatically. The nesting capability helps us to reduce sheet wastage too.
“The system has helped boost our productivity enormously and made our operation much more efficient. PanelBuilder has the potential to revolutionise our industry,” he adds.
Newly launched in the UAE, the first companies to acquire PanelBuilder’s customised cladding technology have been equally impressed by its performance. Rashid Al Abbar, chairman of Al Abbar Aluminium, Dubai, says: “In construction, like any other field, technology is always improving but it is usually small steps at a time. PanelBuilder is a giant leap forward.
“Rarely have we encountered a product which has had such an immediate impact on our efficiency. From an economic standpoint, this is one of the best investments we have ever made. PanelBuilder pays for itself very quickly. In fact, we are so impressed with it that we have already ordered a second, bigger, machine that produces panels 2 m by 11.6 m.”
Sharjah-based Arabian Profile, which has long been at the forefront of cladding technology, was also lavish in its praise: “This system offers up almost limitless design opportunities as well as saving an enormous amount of time,” says director Harald Halvorsen. “Our productivity has increased five-fold since we acquired PanelBuilder,”
PanelBuilder’s creator, Stuart Kriskinans, says the system had received wide acclaim in the US and Europe but he believed the Gulf and wider Middle East could be the most lucrative market to date.
“You only need to look at the size of the projects over here to see the potential. A good-sized project in the UK would be 5,000 panels. Here it’s 30,000 panels, so the payback time is shorter than anywhere else in the world,” Kriskinans told Gulf Construction.
“Even in the UK one company achieved a payback time of seven months – and their annual turnover was only a couple of million pounds. In North America, there are companies who have made the machine pay for itself on a single three-month contract. Here, the return on investment would be even quicker.
“The response so far has been excellent. Apart from Al Abbar, Arabian Profile and Alutech, we have also sold machines to Technical Glass of Sharjah and to Alico, Kuwait.”
Kriskinans is quick to emphasise, however, that PanelBuilder is not just for the ‘big boys’ of the industry. “In cash terms, they reap the greatest benefits because they have the biggest turnover. But PanelBuilder can also transform the fortunes of smaller fabrication companies, even startups. There is a PanelBuilder for every budget,” he says.
The machines come in a variety of sizes – typically up to 2 m wide and 12 m long, although there is no restriction on length. The bigger the machine, the better the sheet optimisation and the greater the savings. “Yield per sheet can be as high as 97 per cent,” says Kriskinans. “There is absolutely minimal wastage. It also calculates precisely how many sheets you will need for a particular job – there’s no guesswork and no costly mistakes,” he adds.
Kriskinans continues: “It’s a genuine breakthrough and that’s always exciting. We’ve made the impossible, possible.
“The great strength of PanelBuilder is that it was configured specifically for the needs of the cladding industry. That is what makes it unique. There were not many triple-headed machines in the world to begin with – and certainly none with the software and cutting capabilities of this system.
“Most of the competition sell a one-carriage machine or tool changers and, in both cases, the tools have to be changed between each job. That is the traditional process and it’s a process that spells downtime.
“With a three-headed machine you can V-groove, drill the holes in the corners and cut the outside edge of the whole panel all in one go. It can carry out additional simultaneous functions, depending on the requirements of the job. There is also a range of special features like vacuum hold-down. Everything is covered.”
Kriskinans predicts that vertical panel saws will soon be consigned to the scrapheap. “Anyone who buys one now is buying yesterday’s technology. They are so labour intensive and involve so many problems. Speed, accuracy, consistency and depth of cut – none of these is guaranteed. But with PanelBuilder, the results are perfect every time,” he adds.
“Because all the tooling already exists in the system software, even a layman can configure or reconfigure panel specifications. Simply type the dimensions into little boxes and the software does the rest – stretching the panel, turning in the angles before your eyes. Anyone can do it – absolutely anyone.
“The specs can be as detailed as you like – panel hooks, returns, whatever – and it’s as easy sending down 100 sheets as it is one. The software system has all the sheet sizes that you have in stock; it has all the geometry; all the drill holes – so it can calculate precisely the yield per sheet and tell you how many sheets are required,” Kriskinans says.
He adds: “When we started out on this project we looked at all existing CNC technology and computer packages, and while many were commendable, none provided an industry-specific system tying all the required functionality together into a seamless package.
“That’s what we set out to achieve and the response from the ACM market has been overwhelming. Introducing PanelBuilder to the booming Gulf construction industry is definitely a case of the right product for the right place at the right time,” he concludes.