KJ Ryan says its recent purchase of a Zünd G3 2XL3200 digital cutting system was 'the obvious choice' that has accelerated its production of prototypes and completed designs for the automotive interiors market.
The automotive interiors trimming specialist – which counts Bentley, Jaguar, Land Rover and McLaren amongst its partners – sought a new digital cutting system to replace a smaller sampling machine for use with leather, PVC, foam, carpet, plastic and other materials.
KJ Ryan's Engineering Manager, Brian Downing, explains that one of company's customers had recently installed a similar system from Zünd.
"We talked to our client about the Zünd and to every question we asked about what it can do came the reply 'Yes it can'," he says. "We initially looked at four products and the Zünd came across as the obvious choice for us. It met all of our requirements."
At the invitation of this client, a team from KJ Ryan visited Zünd Systemtechnik AG's pioneering headquarters and demonstration centre in Altstätten, Switzerland to explore the Zünd range in more detail and learn about its capabilities.
"Again, we asked a lot of questions and every question had an answer, and a positive one," says Brian Downing. "Many companies say they'll come back to you with an answer but not at Zünd - you couldn't trip them up."
KJ Ryan's Zünd G3 2XL3200 with full front and rear extensions was installed at its Coventry site in September. Like all Zünd systems, the customer was able to choose from a wide range of modules and tools to create the optimum system for its unique needs; in this case an intelligent leather processing system was fitted on the rear extension.
The leather-cutting system digitises the hide, highlighting areas of different quality and any imperfections such as scars or creases. The operator can then nest parts manually or automatically to avoid these imperfections, before the Zünd's cutting system cuts the hide with minimal operator intervention, with exceptionally high safety levels.
After the cutting stage, the machine feeds forward to the front extension, where a projector shines down onto the table to illuminate the location of each cut part. This makes picking and sorting a much simpler and quicker process for the operator.
The system works with MIND software, developed for the leather market in collaboration with Zünd. MIND is also particularly productive with the Zünd D3, a double-beamed digital cutting system launched in 2016 and designed originally for leather-cutting operations.
Zünd UK will be exhibiting its digital cutting hardware and software for the automotive and other markets at Advanced Engineering 2017, taking place at Birmingham's NEC on November 1st and 2nd 2017, and welcomes visitors to its dedicated demonstration suite in St Albans. To book a meeting or for further information on its cutting systems, please email sales@zund.co.uk or call 01727 833003.
