Nobilia produces around 3000 kitchens every working day, and around 660,000 fitted kitchens per year. With each kitchen comprising 10 units on average, this equates to more than 6.5 million kitchen units. “That kind of output simply isn’t possible without a high degree of automation”, explains Martin Henkenjohann, Head of Engineering at nobilia. “At the end of the day, consumers have individual expectations when it comes to their kitchen. This often leads to a batch size of 1 in production.”
With its cost-effective and reliable production facilities, nobilia is able to meet its own exacting demands in terms of output, speed and performance while ensuring delivery date reliability and high-quality service. Working in close partnership with nobilia, Hüttenhölscher uses its specific expertise to develop high-end custom solutions for the assembly systems at nobilia. “Our continuous improvement processes are built on technological innovation. Many of these innovations – such as components with IO-Link® capability or the Motion Terminal – are from Festo and are characterised by high product quality, solution and consulting expertise”, says Hüttenhölscher. The latest fully automated assembly system for manufacturing kitchen unit drawers that Hüttenhölscher has supplied to nobilia has two levels. On the upper level, the front panels are machined in the drilling system and the required mounting holes are added. On the lower level, the corresponding drawers are assembled in parallel. The last step is assembly, when the front panel is placed in front of the drawer.
Different front panels in a wide variety of sizes, materials and colours travel
along the production line one after another according to the order specifications. “The front panels function as a kind of master in the system”, says Henkenjohann. As soon as a front panel is fed in, the system detects its exact identity via a bar code. Using this data, the drilling system automatically adjusts itself to the size of the front panel and the required hole pattern. At the same time, the system starts assembling the appropriate drawer box at the bottom part of the machine. In the final step on the line, the front panel and the box are joined together to create the finished drawer.
Waldstraße 53–57
33415 Verl
Germany
Area of business: Manufacture and sale of fitted kitchens
Grasweg 47
33415 Verl
Germany
Area of business: Planning, design and assembly of special purpose machines
and robot applications for the furniture industry as well as other industry sectors