managing supplies & processes

Purchase & Supply Chain

The Purchase & Supply Chain Departments are dynamic departments with an essential task: to ensure that all supplies needed to build a machine are delivered to the workshop at the right time. This is essential to build, ship and install the machines on time. The dynamics in the market, the fluctuating prices and the – sometimes limited - availability of components make it a challenge every time to get the machines to the customer within the agreed time. Something that has still succeeded to this day!

"WE ARE ENTREPRENEURS, INVOLVED, DOWN-TO-EARTH AND WE LIKE CRAFTMANSHIP AND TECHNOLOGY"

Life at Voortman

PURCHASE & SUPPLY CHAIN:
AN INDISPENSABLE ELEMENT IN OUR PROJECTS

THE LARGEST AUTOMATED VOORTMAN SYSTEM EVER

J&D Pierce Contracts Ltd. is a large structural steel fabricator based in Glengarnock, United Kingdom. Pierce invested in the largest European fully automated Voortman system. Due to the size of this immense project, the system was on forehand determined and designed based on real-time simulations.

Derek Pierce, CEO van J&D Pierce, explains: “I did expect quit a few glitches with the total automation and the load balancing and there were very few problems which I was incredibly impressed with. The system is a large system and it has a tremendous amount of automation and they all worked almost perfectly first time which I was incredibly impressed with. We can do 200 tonnes per day without any issue at all. The facility is more than capable of doing way over 1.000 tonnes per week."

Want to know more? Watch the testimonial of J&D Pierce.

THE JOURNEY TOWARDS EFFICIENCY

Ian Cahill, managing director of Cahill Structures, based in England, is a testament to the transformative power of the right machinery in structural steel fabrication. "The industry we're in is a very competitive industry. Everything's about being efficient."

In the pursuit of efficiency, Cahill found himself on a quest for quality machinery to reduce man-hours and increase production capacity. This led him to Voortman. With Voortman's machinery, Cahill Structures has seen a significant reduction in man-hours by an average of 25 to 30% per ton. Cahill states, "We can run both machines load and unload and start the steel with two people." The company now handles projects well in excess of £7 million, a far cry from their early days of £50,000 projects. “The machine can do the work of five or six men running a day.”

Curious? Discover the story of Cahill structures.