Fume & Dust Extraction Systems at Unistrut Ltd

When Unistrut Ltd made the decision to relocate their manufacturing, warehousing and distribution to one central location within the West Midlands by moving from Oldbury to West Bromwich, about 2.5 miles away, they turned to Flextraction to help them dismantle, re-install and upgrade their existing fume and dust extraction systems.Unistrut supplies metal framing, cable management and pipe support products to the electrical, mechanical and industrial services industries throughout the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East & Africa). Significant projects include cable trays to the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow and channels to the £75 million refurbishment of the M25 Holmesdale tunnel. The Company forms part of the Tyco Electrical & Metal Products business division.

Some of the extraction systems at Oldbury were relatively new and others were in good condition, so Unistrut decided not to buy complete new systems, but to utilise their existing system. Following a number of meetings with Flextraction, they contracted them to carry out the dismantling, undertake any needed refurbishment, install new equipment where required and re-locate it all to West Bromwich. Flextraction were happy to work to a timetable decided upon by Unistrut Maintenance Engineers, although these timetables were often revised at short notice, the re-location took just 4 weeks to complete.

Unistrut LtdEric Shropshall, Unistrut's Production Engineer said: "The complete fabrication shop was moved including a robot welding cell, continuous MIG seam welding machine, MIG welding benches plus 2 cable ladder MIG welding benches all of which required fume and dust extraction systems. All this equipment is used to weld carbon and stainless steel bracket assemblies for our Metal Framing Systems including cantilever brackets. We also weld cable ladders in widths from 150mm to 900mm and depths from 100mm to 150mm, with all their necessary accessories to provide safe and effective management of heavy duty electrical cabling."

Lee Darton, Flextraction's Sales Manager said: "Our distributor in the West Midlands, Central Welding Supplies Ltd was fully involved in obtaining this contract, but overall we were responsible for carrying out the project. In addition to the re-location we manufactured and supplied a new extraction system for 2 cable ladder welding jigs using lip extraction, which uses long extraction manifolds mounted under the welding area to extract the welding fumes downwards away from the welder's face. This was a new concept for Unistrut and has resulted in a cleaner working atmosphere."

Eric Shropshall continued: "In addition to the ladder jig extraction and refurbishment of some of our equipment, Flextraction installed new more efficient fans to aid extraction. We currently discharge our welding fumes into the outside atmosphere, but we are currently working to use filtered units, which will allow us to re-circulate clean air back into the workshop and reduce our heating costs. The only problems we encountered were difficulties supporting the 8 ductwork stacks on the side of our building, fortunately Flextraction came up with a solution using some of our own products to construct framework to support the structures and spread the loads. We have been impressed by the service from Flextraction and their ability to react quickly to our requirements and find solutions to any problems we incurred. The result is that our fabrication shop has a better working environment."