Complete door line for Deurenfabriek Suselbeek

The challenge

Since 1921, Deurenfabriek Suselbeek in Sinderen has been making front, back, garage and garden doors for new-build and renovation projects. The market is shifting: demand for solid hardwood doors is steadily falling and demand for composite doors is rising, partly because of their better insulation value. At the same time, online sales are growing, and with them the demand for short delivery times.

Door blanks were largely produced by hand: labour-intensive, with a lot of heavy lifting and a ceiling of around 500 blanks. Suselbeek therefore looked for a partner to make production less physically demanding and to switch to a continuous, industrial process.

The solution

HG Engineering developed and built the complete line for composite doors. For earlier door lines we supplied individual machines; this was the first complete production line of this size that we designed and built ourselves.

The key requirement: the line had to fit into the existing hall and could be no longer than 30 metres. We measured the hall, drew up a 2D layout and developed it into a 3D model. “We really had to shuffle things around to keep the line short,” says Bart van Gemert.

The line starts with a loading station that automatically places the door panel on a roller conveyor. From there, the product passes through the automatic gluing machine to the tilting station and the press. At the end, the finished blanks are automatically stacked onto an unloading cart.

The result

• Heavy lifting has been reduced to a minimum.
• Work is carried out in a continuous process instead of in separate pressing cycles.
• Capacity has grown to 900 to 1,200 doors per week, with room for further expansion.
• Suselbeek can offer composite doors faster and made to measure, with a 48-hour service as the longer-term goal.

An article about this project appeared in the trade magazine Timmerfabrikant (December 2022).