Increased production demands and an ever-expanding range forced B&W to take a fresh look at their existing facilities. B&W Loudspeakers installed a FlexLink XK pallet conveyor system in their production facility in Worthing, Sussex. The new drive unit assembly line, with specially modified pallets transports the brand leading speakers through the assembly process. 

“It became clear that our manufacture of drive-units above 180 mm diameter would significantly increase to the point where we would not be able to continue with our existing bench build process within the space available”, explains Neil Hunter, production engineer at B&W.
“It also became clear at this point that the overall volume of bass unit manufacture was to increase dramatically.” An existing FlexLink conveyor installed eight years ago at the site prompted B&W to get in touch with FlexLink again.

A fully automated satellite system handling heavier products
“We had been running up to 2000 units a day on the existing line which operated with manual workstations using the old-style adhesives with no problems at all. Now we are using a new two-part acrylic technology and needed a fully automated satellite system handling heavier products with wider diameter chassis.”

Keeping downtime to an absolute minimum
B&W engineers worked closely with the FlexLink team to ensure that the design of the new system ensure high efficiency and could cope with ever increasing production demands. Once approved, the system was built and installed on-site by both B&W and FlexLink engineers. “Our engineers worked together on the installation enabling us to understand the full capabilities of the system and allowing us to easily modify and upgrade when necessary. It also means keeping downtime to an absolute minimum.”

A unique motorized control system
The system itself consists of five FlexLink XK conveyor lines joined by crossovers and six gluing stations. The standard FlexLink pallets were modified to produce a unique motorized control system incorporating a stop-and-rotate procedure at each workstation. Once the part-assembled speakers pass through the last gluing station the pallets are transferred onto a buffer line allowing a 10 to 20 minute drying period for the acrylic to set. 

Production facility meets the needs of all shapes and sizes 
Producing up to 5.000 units a week, reliability plus optimum efficiency were critical  factors when choosing the system. “We decided to specify and design the software ourselves”, explains Tim Hill, a production engineer at B&W “The finished system now allows us to build a batch size of one, maintaining optimal effectiveness in zero set-up time. The set-up we have here is extremely flexible allowing us to assemble to order”.
“In addition, B&W are now in a position where there is available capacity for further in-house build in the future, and to have a production facility that meets the needs of all shapes and sizes of bass unit within the company’s product portfolio.”