Scanning investment results in higher production

EastCoast Mouldings, located in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, is a provider of moldings, door jambs and windows to the housing market in the Southeast and was looking to add substantial capacity in their cut off operation.

According to Woody Bachman, Operations Manager, “Demand for wood products to other departments was getting higher than we could provide with our existing equipment. We decided the best investment we could make for the future of EastCoast Mouldings was to go to scanning and automated cutting.” Adding manual chopping was not the favored solution since training of choppers is a lengthy process as well as the additional safety concerns.

After an extensive review process, EastCoast Mouldings decided to purchase a LuxScan Technologies Combiscan C200. “Luxscan proved that the color cameras were necessary to our applications, the proven success of Luxscan on our species (poplar, radiata pine and red oak) and their proximity to our location, were all factors that swayed us to them,” said Woody of the decision.

The scanner purchased is a LuxScan Technologies Combiscan C200. The scanner uses smart cameras on 4 sides for defect detection and top and bottom color to aid in overall detection capabilities. The color cameras are important for poplar as they help to determine which colors can go in what products.

The scanner was also purchased with transports provided by LuxScan Technologies. The transports ensure the proper control of the board during the scanning process. Woody noted that, “After our testing of scanners we understood how important it is to have control of the board during the scanning process. Leaving that to a third party gives the opportunity for finger pointing and based on how important this project is to EastCoast we could not afford to have those types of issues.”

Once the scanner was on site, EastCoast provided Luxscan with a set of boards with the types of defects they wanted detected. LuxScan Technologies has a library of species and during the scanner installation the detection specifics are modified to meet the customer’s requirements. Luxscan takes full responsibility of setting up the vision part of the system.

Each LuxScan Technologies scanner comes with a powerful optimizer. The optimizer can do rotations, different grades, and multiple parts with multiple defect restrictions as well as optimize on 3 different strategies. EastCoast sent 4 people to the Luxscan office in Troutman, NC for optimizer training, and continued the process back at the plant.

EastCoast Mouldings has been pleased with the production results. According to Woody, “The poplar production is better than we expected. We are very happy with the speed of the scanner, the consistency of the products produced as well as the improved yield. We are very pleased with our LuxScan Technologies purchase.”

By Shawn Miller
(article was originally printed in MILL PRODUCT NEWS)

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