First applications of the new Eco Tools® technology conclude amazing results in Chinese SPC factories. Milling speed of SPC products up by 50% while resulting in cost reductions between 0.04$ to 0.05$ per square meter, thanks to energy saving and lower cutting tool wear.
In October the technical team from Unilin traveled to China to set up the first two milling lines that make use of Unilin's new cutting tool layout called Eco Tools®. This new technology was embraced by SS Floors and Jiangsu Success Wood Products co., ltd. (Pridon), two well-known resilient flooring producers from China that adopted the new tool layout in their existing SPC milling lines.
Eco Tools® are cutting tools with a unique geometry that minimizes impact and friction with the flooring material during the milling process, resulting in lower energy consumption, much faster production speeds, and therefore significantly increased output.
Jan De Rick, technical manager for the IP division of Unilin explains: "From the in-line results at SS-Floors and Desai we learn that with Eco Tools® the milling speed of rigid materials can be increased by 50%, from about 60 meters per minute up to 90 meters per minute. It is well-known in the industry that many manufacturers of SPC products can't run their milling lines on maximal capacity because of the rigidity of the flooring material and the energy required to mill profiles in the material. The milling speed and capacity is therefore currently a big bottleneck for many SPC manufacturers. The Eco Tools® technology is able to increase the milling speed to its maximum capacity without a need for additional motors in the machine, and as a result massively increases production output."
Richard Yao, President of Jiangsu Success Wood Products Co., Ltd. and the brand Pridon comments: "The technical team of Unilin did an amazing job. Without making any major investments the milling speed of my SPC line is up by 50% and at this higher speed the energy consumption of my milling line has decreased by 25%"
Peter Li, General Manager of SS Floors, expresses an additional advantage of Eco tools®: "The milling speed of our SPC line has gone up tremendously. On top of that the wear of the tools is lower than before: with Eco Tools® we can produce more square meters of SPC flooring with the same cutting tools".
The lower energy consumption and the slower wearing of Eco Tools® result in a cost reduction up to 40.000$ per SPC line or 0.04$ to 0.05$ per square meter.
Eco Tools® represent a disruptive way to approach the design of a milling tool. By evenly dividing the energy consumption of the milling engines Unilin was able to solve the bottleneck of high-speed milling in SPC and other highly filled materials.
The patented Eco Tools® technology will be offered to Unilin IP's licensing base through selected tool supplier partners and will be presented at the upcoming Domotex fair.