PROFILING PERFORMANCE AND PRECISION The Homag Group is a diverse, global engineering company and the world’s leading manufacturer of machines and plant for the woodworking industry. Philip Yorke looks at how the company has strengthened its market position further with the launch of a new generation of highly efficient and energy-saving precision products.
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he Homag Group is famous for its range of iconic, branded products and their contribution to increasing the efficiency of the furniture manufacturing industry. The company offers a wide range of machines and solutions to meet the needs of the most demanding furniture makers and their suppliers. Homag is particularly well-known for its sizing and edgebanding, softforming and postforming machinery, as well as for its stationary CNC machines and complete production line solutions. Today the Homag Group consists of 14 subsidiary manufacturing companies, 11 of which are located in Germany with a further one in Spain and others established in Brazil and China. In addition, the company has more than 20 sales and technical service 34 Industry Europe
companies supporting its global operations, as well as a leading global consultancy company: Schuller Business Solutions.
Continuous performance optimisation The significant potential for energy savings in terms of consumption was realised at an early stage by Homag, and its commitment to performance optimisation has resulted in some remarkable new products and some innovative technical achievements. This ongoing drive for enhanced efficiency is exemplified in the new technology package from Homag called ‘ecoPlus’ which is designed to increase productivity and save costs. This new ‘eco’ package encompasses a whole series of innovations, all of which were developed to achieve energy savings of up to 30 per
cent or more whilst at the same time significantly reducing operating costs. These new technologies sum up Homag’s approach to sustainability and make production significantly more efficient and more profitable, whilst at the same time offering greater environmental benefits. In addition, Homag focuses on the most efficient deployment of its machines for production optimisation, efficiency and cost-saving. Examples of this new technology in action can be seen with the latest Brandt Highflex edge banding machine 1880, complemented with ‘ecoPlus’ technology which offers up to a 20 per cent increase in production output with the same energy input. This is in addition to a saving of up to 40 per cent on reduced air consumption due to the use of a dual-circuit compressed air system.
