At the end of 2025 we made a start on the first significant investment since 2022 (our biomass boiler upgrades): a new twin bed nesting CNC router to improve our vinyl door production capacity by 30%, reduce lead times and provide operational margin for maintenance on our existing machines.
After just over 6 months of planning, installation and testing the new router is now fully operational and supplying the Aspire production line almost continuously with routed doors ready for the gluing and vinyl pressing process.
The new router joins our existing two routers, creating a total of seven beds used solely for the production of the our Aspire range of made-to-measure vinyl wrapped doors. Alongside boosting day-to-day production, the machine will also support future product development, with its advanced 32-tool carousel.
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According to Operations Manager Mike Dawson, this investment targets one of the biggest bottlenecks in the manufacturing process.
"Routing is the most time-consuming part of vinyl door production, so by installing this new router, we are able to stay ahead of production and keep material moving down the line where the vinyl is pressed," he said. "This will make the whole process quicker while helping us maintain our quality standards."
"It's a more modern version of the routers we have already and it's been supplied and installed by the same company in Italy that supplied the other two machines in 2012 and 2019.
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"All our routers are bespoke and although we feed into this one slightly differently, it essentially does the same job, but as it's brand-new we're already seeing improved quality as well as increased capacity."
All our routers work 16 hours per day, 5 days a week, with some weekend shifts during periods of significant orders. Each router has a capacity of around 90 sheets per 16-hour shift - depending on the complexity of the doors/components to be routed - with an average of 7-8 doors/components from each sheet, again depending on the size and style of the doors.
The new router not only gives us more capacity to feed into the gluing/pressing process but will allow us some maintenance opportunities on the other routers to ensure they remain as efficient as possible.
This investment also ties into our wider sustainability efforts. Like the existing routers, the new machine is connected to our air/dust extraction system, which serves both the door and panel production facilities. Waste material collected by the system is then used to fuel our on-site biomass heating plant, with the boilers generating heat and power for the manufacturing process.
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Preparation for the installation involved relocating some board storage, installing new electrical infrastructure and modifying the extraction ducting ahead of the machine's arrival in February.
As well the hardware, we've made some improvements to our internal systems, including a capacity planner that factors in periods of high demand and allows us to smooth out exceptional peaks in the ordering process.
We've got our most experienced and trained staff on our three 'Aspire' routers, ensuring that from the moment the boards are loaded into the machines, everything is checked for optimal efficiency and maximum yield.
Order your Aspire Doors here: Aspire Doors
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