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AFW stopped outsourcing its cutting work
Apparaten Fabrikage Waalwijk is a third-generation family business. They make custom metalwork in small batches, up to fifty pieces, and handle maintenance and overhaul for the LNG and hydrogen sector, container construction included. Just over ten years ago a waterjet of their own arrived in the workshop. What that machine delivered was not first of all a lower bill, but work that had not been there before.
Small batches, always something different
At AFW in Waalwijk the same thing rarely comes in twice. Custom metalwork in batches up to fifty pieces, and alongside that maintenance and overhaul for companies in the LNG and hydrogen sector, container construction among them. It is a third-generation family business, with the short lines that go with it.
That type of work sits badly with outsourcing. A batch of twelve you have cut elsewhere means sending a drawing, waiting, collecting and hoping it is right. On a deviation that round starts again, while the customer has already been given a date. And work you cannot cut yourself, at some point you stop taking on as well.
- Sector
- Custom metal
- Batches
- Up to 50 pieces
- Location
- Waalwijk, NL
The choice was about what
happens after the purchase.
For a workshop of this size a machine is not a purchase but a dependency. There is no second table, so the question is not only what the thing can do, but who comes when it stops and how quickly. At AFW that is precisely what settled it.
We can call Resato at any time; its technical team is competent, flexible, and generally capable of mobilizing within one or two days.
Work came in
that had not been there before.
The expectation with a cutting machine of your own is usually that it gets cheaper. What happened at AFW was something else: the offer changed. Jobs that had previously been turned down because the material or the batch did not fit were suddenly possible.
- More materials on the same table: metals, carbon fibre and glass-fibre reinforced plastics
- No intermediate step: custom cutting stays in house, so the lead time depends on their own planning
- Work a laser cannot handle: special metallurgical blade products do not tolerate that heat
That waterjet has brought us so many more opportunities. The flexibility you create with it is unsurpassed; you can really do everything yourself.
From supplier
to sounding board.
The machine has now been running there for just over ten years. In that time the relationship has changed: we exchange process information, which means what they come across in practice reaches us and the other way around.
That is not a given with a machine you buy once. It works because our engineering and our service sit in the same building in Assen, where the machines are also designed and built. There is nobody in between who has to pass it on.
They cut with a
Resato waterjet too.
Merford
Acoustics · Gorinchem, NL. After 17 years on an ACM, Merford chose Resato again. The ACM-2040 cuts internal recesses in acoustic panels in a single cut, without an extra saw cut.
Read the case
KLu Logistiek Centrum Woensdrecht
Defence · Dongen, NL. 982 Squadron cuts metal, plastics, composite and reinforced concrete on one table, and lets the machine work on unmanned once it is set up.
Read the case
Junge steindesign
Stone working · East Frisia, DE. A stone specialist who chose on availability: a technician the same day, and loading while the machine cuts.
Read the caseWondering whether
it adds up?
Send the work you currently think is better outsourced. We will cut a test piece from it, and you will see on your own material what would be possible in house.
Prefer to call? +31 (0)50 501 6877 or sales@resato-waterjet.com.