QUIET,
DUST-FREE LIFE AT NUTTALL'S
Dust Control Systems Ltd. has recently commissioned a new dust extraction plant at the Dudley, West Midlands
manufacturing plant of Alan Nuttall Ltd.
The privately owned company employs over 750 people across
five Midlands-based factories from where it designs and manufactures
retail display systems for an extensive portfolio of blue chip
clients.
The Dudley site is home to the company’s
Store Fitting division that has in-house design teams producing
bespoke concepts that are manufactured in their metal or
joinery workshops.
The well-equipped joinery shops include CNC machining centres,
moulders, edgebanders, sanders and a variety of saws. Like
many woodworking shops, they have seen machines added over
a number of years, each being connected to a series of internally
sited dust extraction units located close to the machines.
Consequently, the process of waste handling and dust extraction
was not very efficient.
Nuttall’s Operations Manager, Mike Wilkes, explains: “Each
of the extraction units had its own motor, all of which added
up to an excessively high electricity bill. Also, as woodwaste
accumulated, the units had to be regularly emptied, resulting
in labour being diverted from more productive work. But, most
importantly, we were keen to improve the quality of the working
environment by creating a safer, quieter and more comfortable
atmosphere on the shop floor”.
The requirement was for a central, externally
sited high-efficiency plant capable of extracting dust and
chips from 15 woodworking machines and depositing the waste
into a skip. A major constraint was that the plant would
have to fit into very limited space between the factory wall
and the site’s perimeter wall.
Nuttall’s also specified that noise output from the system
should be kept as low as possible.
The solution was provided by Dust Control Systems in the shape
of an NF2000 filter system designed to handle 16,000cfm
of dust laden air. The space saving filter is 40% smaller than
other filters handling similar air volumes and it fitted perfectly
into the available space. Like all DCS Nordfab equipment, the
system is certified according to the ATEX Directive.
The main extraction fan is a 45kW DCS - Combifab. Although
this fan is already one of the most efficient and quietest
units available, it has been located within a soundproof enclosure
to further reduce noise from the system.
The filter is elevated on steelwork above a skip and waste
is carried along the filter hopper by a drag-link conveyor
and discharged via a rotary valve into a sealed hessian bag
inside the skip.
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