Your Guide to Rollforming & Folding Innovation
45-53 days. That is how long a machine out of Europe used to sit on the water. With the Middle East conflicts, vessel rerouting and other factors – it’s now almost double that and we wanted to let you know, as it will impact timelines for delivery of new equipment.
Nothing else about buying a machine has changed, just the timing, and I would rather tell you that in September than have you find out in March.
Also in this edition: the CIDAN FX and why a Queensland customer of ours came back for a second one, the QR stickers we are rolling out to help you manage machine issues, and a few more pre-loved machines that are available. We are also at NZMRM in Port Douglas from the 14th, so if you are going along I look forward to seeing you.
Protect the bread and butter: the FX Story
We are seeing more interest in short folders from traditional long folder users than we have in a while, and they are all after much the same thing: a low cost box or combination folder to sit alongside the big machine.
It buys them the flexibility to produce sumps, rain heads and other smaller flashings or 4-sided parts, without interrupting the bread and butter work the long folders process all day.
The CIDAN FX is what we put in front of them. Three working lengths, a 150mm clamping beam opening and adjustable crowning across the range. The rotating Combi Beam lets you move between profiles without pulling tooling out, and the high divided tooling option gives 125mm of tool height, ideal for complex boxes.
One of our Queensland customers saw the FX running at Australian Manufacturing Week last year and put one into a single branch to clear an accessory bottleneck. It earned its place quickly, and they have since bought another for a second site. That’s feedback that is hard to argue with.
| Model | Working length | Steel | Stainless | Aluminium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FX26 | 2600mm | 2.5mm | 1.6mm | 3.7mm |
| FX32 | 3200mm | 2.0mm | 1.2mm | 3.0mm |
| FX41 | 4100mm | 2.0mm | 1.2mm | 3.0mm |
Thickness capacities are quoted at 400 N/mm² tensile for steel, 600 N/mm² for stainless and 200 N/mm² for aluminium.
Forty five days on the water is currently many more…
Freight is the part of this business I cannot engineer a solution for, so the least we can do is be straight with you about it. Equipment coming out of Europe used to average about 45-53 days on the water but its now looking like it will be close to 100.
We are shipping a machine to a Christchurch customer at the moment that had a projected transit of 7-8 weeks as recently as early July. Vessel rerouting, port congestion and transit delays have now added another 5-6 weeks to that.
Nothing changed at our machine supplier, we just can’t control nor influence freight.
If you have upgrades planned for 2027 with critical deadlines, talk to us about the latest freight projections.
Where you can find us: NZMRM and EuroBLECH
We are at the NZMRM conference from 14 to 17 September, at the Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort in Port Douglas. Sitting down with roofing manufacturers away from their own factory floor where we can discuss their challenges (and opportunities), if you’re attending – we look forward to seeing you.
EuroBLECH runs from 20 to 23 October at the Hanover Exhibition Grounds, and it only comes around every two years. We have limited complimentary tickets available for our customers, so if Hanover is on your list, get in touch early and we will sort your tickets – first in best dressed.
Email us to get EuroBLECH tickets
Total Reliability: Scan the Sticker, Log the Niggle
Operators are your best source of learning when something has changed on the line. The problem has always been what happens next. They mention it to someone, that person is busy and forgets, and it surfaces three weeks later as a breakdown.
We have started rolling out our Machine Intelligence labels to customers and the early feedback is very positive. A QR coded sticker is placed in a prominent position on the machine. An operator (or anyone else) can scan it on their phone and can log a noise, knock or vibration that didn’t use to be there and probably is the first sign something is about to break. That generates a notification to the nominated site contact who then has a digital record that is easier to keep track of or send to their maintenance technician (even if it’s not TRF) to be looked at.
No more remembering that you forgot to mention a new noise when a Technician is onsite for something else, nor having that discussion with the operator about how long that puddle of oil has been under the machine when it stops, for them to remind you they told you last week.
The QR code can also be setup to provide access to machine manuals, electrical drawings, SOPs or any other documents that need to stay with the machine.
The sticker works on any machine on your floor, whether we service it or not.
Preowned machines – Sold, and what is still on the floor
The used market is cranking at the moment. Three machines have gone out the door recently, all of them quickly.
What’s sold:
✓ SWI Simplex folder – heading to a customer’s new satellite site
✓ Ceiling Batten machine – Went quickly to a regional producer
✓ Roof Batten RF – Into an established roofing manufacturer
Two units are available now, and both would be on your floor a long way inside the current shipping window.
✓ 5″ half round gutter machine.
✓ Hayes Variable C/Z Purlin – 100/12 – 300/24. Precut, includes single decoiler.
Both have been inspected. If either is of interest, call me and I will tell you honestly what condition it is in and what it has done.
Why buy through us?
1. Technical inspection by qualified service technicians
2. Full transparency on machine condition and history
3. Fast delivery compared to new equipment lead times
* All equipment may be subject to location embargoes (owners won’t sell to the guy down the road)
Planning your 2027 equipment strategy? We are here to help you make informed decisions around capacity, capability, and efficiency.
Email directly: solutions@totalrollforming.com
Maintenance tip: Check What OS Your Machines Are Running
Its worth a look at the any PCs running plant on your floor. Plenty are on Windows 7 and a few are still on XP. Microsoft stopped patching Windows 7 in January 2020, and Windows 10 went the same way in October last year, which is the one most people have not caught up with.
The machine keeps operating either way, until it doesn’t. Then the drive dies, and you are chasing install media for an operating system nobody sells any more, on hardware nobody makes, and your parameters and profiles were on that disk.
While it is all still working:
1. Audit out what each control PC is actually running.
2. Take a full disk image and keep it somewhere other than the machine.
3. Make sure you can put your hands on the software installer, the licence details and a current backup of your settings.
4. If it is on an unsupported version, keep it off the office network.
