Leitz profile changing system wins 2021 Innovation Award of the Eastern Württemberg Chamber of Industry and Commerce

At the end of the previous year, Leitz GmbH & Co. KG was awarded the Innovation Award of the Eastern Württemberg Chamber of Industry and Commerce - for the development of the flexTrim3 automatic profile changing system. The product of the world market leader from Oberkochen convinced and inspired the jury in particular with regard to the evaluation criteria "economic efficiency", "originality", "chance of realisation and use", "effort for the idea" and "sustainability". The "Award for Patents and Talents" is handed out every year to regional companies, persons and organisations for the development and implementation of outstanding innovative ideas.

The patented flexTrim3 system was developed specifically for quick profile changes within continuous production processes and successfully brought to market. Since its market launch about two years ago, furniture manufacturers all over the world have been producing their furniture components such as carcasses or fronts with this tool system. FlexTrim3 shows its full effect in batch size 1 production and leads to significant increases in the efficiency of the production process by eliminating downtimes for profile changes. Since manual tool changes take a lot of time, this way of changing profiles is simply uneconomical for batch size 1 production. Alternative systems for tool changing are usually very expensive and also require a lot of installation space within the machine.

With flexTrim3, Leitz offers an economically acceptable solution for this type of challenge. The 3-in-1 concept allows automatic profile change between three different profiles. In terms of profile types, all customer-specific radius and chamfer profiles, up to a depth of 3 mm, can be implemented on the profile rims. Even the combination of "with feed and against feed" is individually possible with the system. The profile changes are programme-controlled and take just 30 seconds! The result is a maximally efficient batch size 1 production with less manpower and very short downtimes. The flexTrim3 system is also universally applicable in the materials to be machined. Softwood, hardwood, veneer or plastic laminates can be processed reliably and in top quality.  On the machine side, the new flexTrim3 system can be used specifically on HOMAG FF32 units.

In terms of sustainability, particular emphasis was placed on using resources as efficiently as possible. By using diamond cutting edges, the tools have very long lifetimes of one year and more before they need to be replaced. In this way, the pressure switching mechanism can be reused at the end of the tool's lifetime.

flexTrim3 provides more flexibility and efficiency in edge processing as well as a significant increase in productivity. A solution from Leitz that shows how practice-oriented and value-added tool development works today. Leitz thus proves its innovative strength and clearly underpins its position as world market leader.

Innovation Award for Eastern Württemberg
The Innovation Award has been presented annually since 2002 and is organised jointly by the Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft mbH Region Ostwürttemberg (WIRO), the Ostwürttemberg Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the Kreissparkassen (district savings banks) of the Ostalb and Heidenheim districts. Submitted innovations must either be patented or have won an award in a transregional competition.