NWMS Invests in Advanced Manufacturing Capability with Prima Power Combi Genius CG1540
North West Metal Sections has continued its investment in advanced UK manufacturing by installing a new Prima Power Combi Genius CG1540, which incorporates high-speed punching and a 6 kW fibre laser.
The investment is about more than increasing capacity. It significantly expands the range and complexity of cold-rolled, roll-formed, and fabricated steel components that NWMS can manufacture, allowing more operations to be completed accurately and efficiently from sheet material before components move into forming and assembly.
From sheet metal to complex finished components
NWMS has long specialised in the manufacture of cold-rolled and roll-formed steel sections, supplying bespoke components and profiles to customers across a wide range of industries.
The CG1540 adds another dimension to that capability.
By combining CNC punching, forming and fibre laser cutting within a highly automated manufacturing system, complex features can be introduced into a component while it is still flat. Holes, slots, cutouts, notches, ventilation patterns, edge details, and other features can be produced accurately before subsequent bending, roll forming, or fabrication.
For suitable products, this can remove secondary operations, reduce handling and simplify the overall manufacturing route.
It also gives our engineers considerably greater freedom when developing components with customers.
Rather than designing a product around the limitations of a single manufacturing process, we can consider the complete route from flat sheet through cutting, punching, and forming to the finished component.
Greater capability for complex cold-formed components
Combined with our existing roll-forming, press brake, laser, welding, tooling and engineering capabilities, the new Prima Power system allows NWMS to manufacture increasingly sophisticated components from a single UK manufacturing source.
This is particularly valuable for complex cold-formed steel components and roll-formed profiles requiring features such as:
accurately positioned holes and slots;
complex laser-cut geometries and cut-outs;
repeated punched features;
formed features produced directly in the sheet;
variable features along the length of a component;
components requiring subsequent bending or roll forming;
high levels of repeatability across production volumes.
The result is not simply a faster way of making existing parts. It opens up manufacturing routes for components that would previously have required several separate processes, additional handling or multiple suppliers.
Automation and lights-out manufacturing
The CG1540 has also been specified with automated material handling, providing the foundation for extended and lights-out sheet metal manufacturing.
Automated loading and unloading allows production to continue with substantially reduced manual intervention, increasing available manufacturing hours without simply increasing labour requirements.
For our customers, that ultimately means greater flexibility, improved scalability and additional capacity when demand increases.
Investing in capability, not just capacity
Our approach to capital investment at NWMS is straightforward: a new machine should do more than provide additional capacity.
It should improve what we can offer our customers.
The Prima Power CG1540 forms part of a wider investment in manufacturing technology, tooling, quality systems, production control and engineering expertise. Together, these investments allow us to take on more technically demanding work while retaining the flexibility and engineering involvement required for bespoke manufacture.
For customers developing bespoke cold-rolled sections, roll-formed steel profiles, complex cold-formed components, or fabricated sheet metal assemblies, NWMS can become involved earlier in the design process and help identify a practical, repeatable, and cost-effective route to manufacture.
Have a component that is difficult to manufacture, involves too many separate operations, or needs to move from fabrication into repeat production? Talk to our engineering team about how we can help develop the manufacturing process.