The Natural Innovation of Grupo Valco
Solid wood technologies
Grupo Valco manufactures 120,000 doors and 60,000 wardrobes each year, has over 80,000 square metres of factories and a vertical production from sawmills to the delivery of state-of-the-art solutions for residential and contract structures. Their connection with SCM and its Portuguese dealer Lignotec is long-standing and has been strategic in the choice of advanced technologies.
More than 66 years of activity that, generation after generation, has continued to draw inspiration from a passion for wood, respect for environment and a strong and constant innovative vision. These are the pillars of Grupo Valco, an entrepreneurial story that has always seen the Oliveira family at the helm, specialising in the production of doors and other solutions for residential, hospitality and commercial structures.
As the CEO of Grupo Valco, Rui Oliveira, explains, an average of 120,000 doors and 60,000 wardrobes are produced each year, and that's not all because the company is also involved in primary wood processing, with an annual production capacity of 26,000 tonnes of maritime pine logs coming mainly from forests located in the heart of Portugal, where the company has its roots.
It was Rui Oliveira's father, Gabriel, who founded Grupo Valco in 1958, starting with a small carpentry workshop. "Over the decades, we have evolved to become suppliers to large multinational construction companies such as Mota-Engil, Teixeira Duarte, Casais, A Santos...," says Rui Oliveira. "Doors represent about 40 per cent of our production, furniture another 40 per cent, while the rest is divided between the sale of panel coatings and Portuguese maritime pine wood. We sell mainly in Portugal and export to more than 34 countries, like Spain, Morocco, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique and Israel'.
Today, at Rui's side are his wife and sons, together with 160 employees. The two plants boast a total production area of about 80,000 square metres and the adoption of advanced technology has always been a constant for the group's growth.
"What has helped us progress over time is the collaboration with SCM and its Portuguese dealer Lignotec,who have been able to advise us on the technological solutions best suited to our needs. Machines that allow us to offer highly customised and higher quality production".
Grupo Valco relies on a dozen SCM solutions between machines and systems, capable of covering every production requirement of doors and wardrobes: Celaschi profiling and squaring machines, Gabbiani panel sizing machines with Flexstore automatic storage, Morbidelli CNC machining centres, Stefani edgebanding machines, Dmc sanding and calibrating machines, Sergiani presses, etc.
The most recent purchases are highly automated solutions for door production. We see in action a "stefani flex" squaring edgebanding line equipped with an automatic workpiece return roller conveyor and served by two "mahros brush" stations for automatic loading and unloading, which can process doors weighing up to 120 kg. In the feeding stacking station, all the doors are identified by an Rfid (radio-frequency identification) device, which makes it possible to automatically detect all information relating to the production of each specific piece thanks to the insertion on it of a chip connected to the company manufacturing execution system.
The second solution is a drilling, routing and edgebanding cell with a 'morbidelli p800' cnc machining centre served by a 7-axis robot for loading, handling and unloading, and complete with a supervisioning system to control the entire cell. Here too, the loaded doors are identified by the Rfid system before passing to the 'morbidelli p800' for all the necessary operations. Once the first upper side of the door has been machined, the robot can pick it up, return it to the centring device and then pick it up and place it back on the cnc machining centre, 180 degrees tilted. The robot takes care of unloading the doors or, in the case of slots execution, removes any off-cuts generated and then returns the doors to the cnc machining centre to continue the remaining machining operations.
Rui Oliveira says he appreciates the high flexibility and processing quality of both SCM automated systems. "Thanks to these solutions, we can machine doors and cabinets with 'batch 1' processes with great efficiency. Thanks to the Rfid systems for reading and identifying the parts and the integrated supervision software, these lines are connected with our company manufacturing execution system and we can automate and optimise the processes even more by having all the order and production data available. The 'stefani' line offers us significant advantages, allowing us to be faster and achieve high levels of customisation for doors that for the most part have very precise technical characteristics, such as soundproof doors, fireproof doors, and doors resistant to radiation, mainly applied in the hospital and residential sectors. The 'morbidelli p800' cell is also extremely flexible, and the possibility of servicing it with a robot allows us to achieve above-average performance”.
The Portuguese company is a true example of an evolved and intelligent manufacturing company, where innovative processes and digital transformation are real distinctive pluses compared to competitors.
Grupo Valco is not stopping and already has the next steps in mind to grow further. "Today we have the in-house capacity to produce all the elements of a building: doors, wardrobes, skirting boards, bathroom furniture... - concludes Oliveira - Our next step will be to include the production of kitchens to increase turnover by 20 per cent”.
“SCM has enormous potential for us thanks to the quality of its products, innovation and the diversity of the ranges that make up its offer.”
Rui Oliveira
Grupo Valco (Portogallo)
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