When it comes to wall frame lines, they aren’t all made equally. At Spida Machinery, we pride ourselves on providing solutions that are comprehensive, innovative, and most importantly, designed for your manufacturing needs and budget.
The beginning of the year is often a time to reflect and plan for the months ahead and where you want your manufacturing operations to be. With recruitment and retention of labor continuing to be challenging, alongside increasing costs, streamlining your processes and automation are key areas for you to consider in 2025.
Wendy Boyd, Chief Customer Officer Machinery Group explains the benefits of the Spida Wall Frame Line, shares some insights, and addresses some common customer concerns.
Wall Frame Solutions That Start and Stop Where YOU Choose
When talking with customers about wall lines, they often share with me that they can’t afford a “full” line or they don’t have space for a line of machines, so they don’t feel they need such a solution. But, what I convey to them is that our solution is being able to design a wall line explicitly for their business. With a Spida solution, you can start and stop where you wish, ranging from a complete line to just adding a Wall Extruder or Raked Wall Extruder to your current process.
A typical wall frame line at Spida starts with the Major Sub Assembly Table which allows for construction, assembly, and transport of major sub-components. You then have the ability to add relevant machines based on your needs and budget, down the line to complete the building of the wall frame, ending up with the Wall Stacker Outfeed which is a station that accumulates the finished frames as a bundle or stack, ready for the forklift for loading.
You can have as much or as little as you want in this wall line process. A hero within our wall frame line is the Raked Wall Extruder. The operator places the top and bottom plates into the Extruder, clamping in place, followed by feeding the first component of the wall between the plates, and the nails are fired automatically through the plates into the component. The process is repeated until the wall frame is completed. The Raked Wall Extruder is powerful, fast, accurate, and versatile – from this one machine, you can produce both common walls and raked walls!
Some customers opt for the Wall Extruder instead, due to their factory only producing common walls and/or budget considerations.
We can supply a Curved Conveyor that turns the component 90° and allows components to be staged and moved parallel to the line to save space.
Component builders always face the time-consuming and troublesome process of nailing C corners and L studs. Our Stud Extruder helps expedite the process with its placement at the foot of the conveyor. This machine nails together a variety of combinations including C’s and L’s, double studs, triple studs, and fire and cabinet blocking. Also, computer controlled and driven by the same file on the Extruder, this is a marriage made in heaven, ensuring accuracy of the components both in construction and staging order.
Some manufacturers need to add door and window openings, and we have these covered as well. The Build Table allows individual components to be added to the wall panels in one workstation within the workflow process, removing any bottlenecks that may otherwise occur.
The Sheather 5 Gun 2 Saw is another option for inclusion in your wall frame, operating on the same file as the Extruder. “Set and forget” with one touch automation means the operator loads each frame and lets the machine do the rest. With the capability of shooting up to 10 nails per second from all 5 guns and clamping and straightening studs from the underside to prevent shiners, this machine delivers a perfectly sheathed wall in minutes!
Another option to add to your wall line is the Ball Castor Table which allows for one-hand operation, to easily rotate the frame on the table for either a common wall or a raked wall.
When it comes to adding a wall frame solution, we’ll work with you to understand what you’re wanting to achieve and recommend the best machine or machines to allow you to achieve this.
Benefits of Adding a Wall Frame Line
There are many advantages from adding a frame line to your manufacturing, including how it:
- Streamlines your wall manufacturing process and provides consistency,
- Reduces manufacturing costs and increases production,
- Adds innovation and automation, which is not only good for you but also your employees as in most cases the machinery, not the worker, is doing all the heavy lifting,
- Provides excellent ROI, and
- Remains simple to operate due to its intuitive software.
Our robust and reliable machinery is built for the production environment it works in, and we’d welcome the opportunity to talk with you more about what other benefits you can expect when adding a Spida wall line.
Common Concerns When Considering Adding a Wall Frame Line
I’ve been fortunate to talk with many customers about adding a wall frame line, so I’ve heard what the common concerns are. We have answers for these too, so please let me put your mind at ease on these items.
- Is the cost prohibitive? – No, because as I mentioned earlier, we design the wall frame line solution for your needs and budget. One customer said to me, “I don’t have millions to spend on this,” and my answer was, “you don’t have to.” The cost is reflective of the solution you choose, which may be only one machine or multiple machines, that are tailored to your budget, your needs, and your future plans. The great thing about our machinery and how we structure our lines is that you can start off small and add machinery to the line as and when you’re ready. Or, for those who have the need and budget now, they can add a complete line from the get-go – we’re very flexible and will work with you.
- Will this be too big of a change to our manufacturing process? – Change of any type can be daunting and potential customers have shared with me that this move from heavily manual labor towards automation with adding a frame line just seemed like a step too far. But, what I impress upon people is that our machinery has been cleverly designed, with intuitive software making it simple to operate. At Spida, we also provide onsite specific training for you at your factory, which means your employees will learn how to properly frame a wall in a day or two, as the majority of the thinking is done by the machinery. Also, we work with you on an installation and training plan to ensure minimal downtime to your operations.
- Is there enough space in my factory? – Well, that really depends on the solution. Given we customize the solution for your needs, we’ll work with you to provide something that makes sense for you and optimizes the footprint you have. We will even work with you to develop a layout that suits your factory, material handling, and all the available space for your new line.
- Will it be difficult to service the machinery? – Service is not a challenge with Spida! We have a dedicated service and support team locally who provide reliable and responsive service, support, and parts to our customers in the U.S. and Canada. We don’t outsource installation or servicing, so you can rest assured you’ll be well looked after by a member of the Spida team.
- Reach Your Growth and Automation Goals
The manufacturing sector will continue to look at ways to improve throughput and reduce costs in 2025. We encourage you to consider how automation within your workflow will help you achieve these goals.
Here at Spida, we don’t offer a “one size fits all wall frame line” but instead are committed to partnering alongside you to bring a customized, fit-for-purpose solution to your production floor.
When recommending such a solution, we take into account your manufacturing needs and objectives, your pain points, and of course your budget, to bring this solution to life. When you’re ready to take the next step and learn more about how a wall frame line solution (of any size) can benefit you in 2025, please reach out to me or one of the Spida team.
