For more than 75 years, Leicht
Küchen AG in Waldstetten, Germany has been producing high-end custom kitchen
cabinets for customers all over the world. Their cabinet doors are cut to length
by a Holzma HQS 11 high speed cross-cut panel saw. With much offal being
produced the company needed a more efficient way to reduce their waste handling.
WEIMA’s solution was to incorporate the ECO 1 (ECO 600) single-shaft shredder to
complete their automated process.
Location grinding replaces
centralized grinding.
Leicht Kuechen AG had been using a centralized shredding system where scrap
material was being loaded into dumpsters and carted to an in ground conveying
system which took the material to one main shredder. With up to 15 dumpsters of
waste a day from the panel saw operation; this process required a lot of labor
for the handling of the scrap that was generated. One hour a day of a designated
waste handler was required to dispose the offal into the centralized system.
By placing the ECO 1 (ECO 600) directly next to the panel saw the need for
containers were eliminated. No more need to transport waste around the building.
The panel saw is now set-up to automatically cut any scrap piece that is less
than 600mm (24”) long into pieces about 100-120mm (4-5”) long. Longer pieces are
stored for future projects.
The offal is then fed directly into the hopper-fed shredder by a conveyor. The
shredder helped Leicht Kuechen AG to significantly reduce the cost of waste
handling by grinding the scrap right at the source. This resulted in more
efficient production, increased efficiency and reduced cost of scrap handling.
The shredder is hooked up to the centralized dust collection system which will
transport the chips into a storage silo. Ultimately, the grounded scrap is
utilized as boiler fuel to generate heat.
The reliable single-shaft shredder ECO 1 (ECO 600)
To ensure a safe operation next to the production machine, the ECO 1 (ECO 600)
is equipped with a doghouse hopper. This hopper design prevents material from
“flying out of the hopper and reduces the noise level of the quiet single-shaft
shredder even further.
The horizontal ram that pushes the material into the rotor is controlled by
sophisticated electronic controls that ‘read’ the amp-load on the main motor and
optimize the pressure applied to the cutting rotor. This optimization acts to
keep material in constant contact with the rotor. The WEIMA Rotor provides tight
tolerances between the rotor and the stator knife to ensure proper size
reduction. When material is shred small enough it will pass through a screen
that is mounted under the rotor. In this case a 12/15 mm (5/8”) screen is
installed in the machine to ensure a small granulate size.
The WEIMA Rotor that is utilized on this machine has a diameter of 252 mm (10”).
The concave shaped rotor knives are 40 x 40 mm square and can be indexed
multiple times for long tool-life. The electro mechanical drive of the ECO 1
(Eco 600) is equipped with 15kW (20hp).
In the Leicht Kuechen AG installation the machine shreds a volume of
approximately 15 m3 (20 yds3) of offal in 5-6 hours of operation during a
2-shift production day (16 hours). This gives the ECO 1 (ECO 600) plenty of
spare capacity for future growth. To ensure an economical shredding process a
fill-stand sensor was integrated in the hopper of the machine. This device
measures the level of scrap in the hopper in order to control the required
duration of the shredding process.
Leicht Kuechen AG went through a thorough vendor selection process. WEIMA was
selected as the supplier for the shredder due to the top quality of the
equipment and their excellent customer service. Since the single-shaft shredder
is part of a major component manufacturing cell it was very critical that a
reliable shredder was selected that could be incorporated without the risk of
long downtime.