Qasair parent company, Condari, has invested over $2 million in a new piece of equipment to continue locally manufacturing rangehoods at its Melbourne factory in Ringwood.
Condari operations manager Nathan Edwards told Appliance Retailer the new Salvagnini fibre laser cutter has been purchased to streamline the production of the company’s rangehoods as well as custom-made models.
“Fibre laser is a relatively new laser technology that allows us to cut through stainless steel which is 0.9mm or 1.0mm thick to manufacture our rangehoods at quite a staggering pace. It has been a great investment in technology, as it ensures we create high-quality products in a much faster timeframe,” Edwards said.
“With the configuration that we have purchased, we can even run this machine overnight and monitor it on safety cameras remotely. The machine comes in three parts – a tower that stores all of the material, the fibre laser itself and then a robotic stacker.
“Once we give the machine all of the information including what material it requires and where, and how it needs to be cut – it collects the material itself and then after cutting the steel it then stacks the cut parts using a robotic arm with vacuum suction – it is quite amazing,” Edwards said.
“This has definitely been a gamechanger for the future of our business. We can leave the machine to operate overnight and then start production with enough metal parts for well over 100 rangehoods ready for assembly the following morning.”