Waterjet Cutting Improves Poductivity

Waterjet Cutting Improves Productivity and Fuels Business Growth for Winona Lighting

Founded in 1960, Winona Lighting, Winona, Minn., grew from a stained glass heritage. Custom manufacturing was the company's focus for its first 20 years, and today, Winona Lighting is still known for its custom capabilities and wide knowledge and craftsmanship only years of experience can bring.

With more than 20 years of product development, Winona Lighting offers one of the widest ranges of styles and designs under five divisions including Custom architectural luminaries designed to complement any application; Decorative Standard Product, ceiling and wall mounts, and exterior sconces; Windirect, which includes high performance asymmetric lighting; Winscape, which includes the company’s indoor and outdoor architectural and landscape luminaries, and Winona LED, specializing in LED Lighting: architectural, step, and linear LED systems.

To fabricate parts out of high quality materials such as stainless, aluminum, brass, copper, glass, plastics, and spinnings, Winona Lighting requires state-of-the-art cutting technology capable of producing parts to the quality and beauty that are trademark of all Winona's finished products.

"We used outside vendors for the majority of our production capabilities," said Steve Ties, CNC operations manager.

"But outsourcing cost us a considerable amount of money – we were spending about $1 million a year in outsourcing. We decided it would be better to control our own destiny and produce our parts in-house so we would have complete control over our ever-changing schedule dates and part quality. We also gained the ability to run a prototype part prior to running the actual part, which we produced on difficult parts needed for certain jobs. The ability to produce prototype parts has proven to be instrumental in cost savings."

In researching different waterjet machines, Ties learned about Flow International's Integrated Flying Bridge (IFB) waterjet machine. Upon meeting with Flow's sales representative and seeing first-hand the many features of the machine, Ties and his team purchased the IFB 6012 with Dynamic Waterjet cutting.

Using the waterjet, Winona Lighting is cutting a wide range of materials. "One interesting project was creating light fixtures out of 2" thick bronze for the U.S. Capitol Visitor’s Center," said Ties. "The finished product was just phenomenal."

As a result of bringing the waterjet into its operations, Winona has realized tremendous growth.

"The waterjet has definitely been the key ingredient in helping us expand our capabilities and realize such tremendous growth. Since implementing Flow's waterjet into our operations four years ago, we've grown by more than $10 million as a company," said Ties.

"Winona Lighting has realized the importance of the Flow waterjet in our growth in the last few years, not to mention the savings from outsourcing parts. If business continues to stay strong we are planning on purchasing our second machine in the very near future."

Ties says they also have improved productivity in being able to stack and cut materials.

"Early on we were cutting single sheets. Our main operator and I thought 'why don’t we start cutting multiple sheets?' What a huge benefit! Every chance we get, we will stack material. It is the best way to maximize your production and keep part costs down."

Ties says they have been very pleased by the numerous benefits the company has realized with Flow waterjets. "Waterjets can cut through basically any material, there are few limitations. It's just an amazing technology."