Two processes combined, one week to production: how Tarkett improved workplace safety
A global flooring leader& optimizes reliability through automation
Tarkett – Orzechowo, Poland
Tarkett needs no introduction – the company is one of the world's biggest flooring manufacturers in the world. At the plant in Orzechowo, Poland, it produces rustic oak engineered flooring as three-layer boards with 3–4 mm oak top layers. The surfaces may be beautiful, but the process of preparing them was not – until now.
Previously: Milling cutters. Safety risks. Separate lines.
Anyone who's been to an oak flooring production facility knows the score. Employees with hand-guided compressed air milling cutters milling out knotholes one at a time. It's loud, dusty, and physically demanding. At the Tarkett factory in Orzechowo, that was Tuesday. Every Tuesday.
The pain points
Employees using compressed air milling cutters were exposed to repetitive strain, noise, and risk of injury on a daily basis.
Cleaning and filling ran as two separate processes on separate lines, resulting in double the handling time and double the space requirement.
Compressed air consumption, manual tool change, and personnel costs all added up across the entire production volume.
The solution: TRC Preclean 2M
The TRC Preclean 2M was put into operation shortly before Christmas 2022: two robots, one line, no compressed air milling cutters. The installation took one week, adapting the software another two, and the new system was ready to go before December was out.
Two robots, one line
Dual robot configuration pre-cleans surfaces, mills out defects, and removes soft spots all in a single pass.
Safety first
No compressed air milling cutters, no repeated manual milling. The most dangerous job on the line has ceased to exist.
Scalable design
Additional processing tables and robots can be added in the event of increasing demand.
Fast retooling
Fast reconfiguration between product variants keeps downtimes to a minimum.
Summary
Tarkett didn't automate its processes for speed; it automated them for safety. The productivity gains were just a welcome extra. This is what happens when you don't just ask of a production line "How can we be faster?" but "Where is there potential to optimize manual activities?". In every board there is more potential than a compressed air milling cutter can extract.
1 week
To complete installation and commissioning
2 processes
Precleaning + filling preparation combined in one line
Significant
Savings in personnel, compressed air, and milling tools
"We have combined the cleaning and filling processes into a single line and see a significant increase in productivity. The precleaning process has become safer and more cost-effective. The TRC Preclean 2M is quick to retool, very flexible, and user-friendly.”
Process Engineer, Tarkett
What is the most physically demanding manual process in your factory?
Talk to our automation team about TRC Preclean solutions and what safety-focused automation could do for your line.