Engineering Efficiency - Soffit Venting Machine

Another commission of a very unique machine was to provide an efficient method of cutting ventilation holes into housing soffit boards, to meet the building regulation standards for new build and refurbished properties.

The regulation provides for a minimum air flow and the machine was designed to be adjustable such that different slot sizes could be made to accommodate customer preferences.

The machine was designed around the takt time for the job. It was measured that the cleaning and packaging of the vented soffit board was 9 minutes. Therefore, the machine was designed to complete the vent in the same time. This ensured that the machine was not over-engineered and therefore more expensive than necessary. At the same time, the design accommodated various upgrade features, such that the takt time could be reduced with some small modifications if needed in the future.