For a few years, Henri Bohncke of Maveco, the company in the Netherlands that took over the Van Voorden machinery in 2004, has not heard much from the UK. Last year that changed. Maveco was suffering as much as anyone else from the world’s economic mess after 2008. But there are a lot of Van Voorden saws still working in the UK, especially at quarries and larger traditional masonry companies. Maveco has stayed in touch with many of the companies that use them because it supplies spares and carries out maintenance on those machines. It has upgraded a lot of them with new operating systems.
As the UK economy has improved, Maveco’s attention has turned more to the British Isles and in June last year Maveco Stone Machinery Ltd was registered as a UK company based in Carlisle, created to increase support to the growing number of British and Irish customers. Henri has been the only Director of the British company but said he was on the verge of appointing someone in the UK as NSS went to press.
Maveco manufactures bridge saws, block saws, gang saws, wire saws, smaller trimming saws, milling and routing machines, polishers and a tile line. The machines are suitable for any stones. Maveco also continues to make and sell Van Voorden spare parts, carry out maintenance and inspections, retroï¬ts, CNC upgrading and modiï¬cations.
As well as concentrating on the UK – which has become one of the company’s best markets in the past two years – Maveco’s main areas of operation are Belgium, Russia, India, Vietnam, Kenya and Senegal.
The company’s adjustment to globalization and the changing economic situation after 2007 has left it focusing on developing and customizing its machines, particularly for speciality projects, and offering quick response repair and maintenance – a service it does not restrict to its own machinery.
One of its current speciality projects is making a three-bladed saw for a customer in England for cutting slabs into strips for paving.
After 2008 Maveco started outsourcing its castings to low cost China and Romania, while critical parts, such as motors, gears and operating systems, are manufactured in western Europe. Even England contributes with control systems coming from Motion Control in Bristol.
Development, customization and overall project management takes place in the Netherlands for the purposes of quality control, making sure standards for CE regulations are met. Maveco’s aim is to offer particularly good value, sturdy stone machines with short delivering times.
“The market doesn’t want to pay for fancy machines,” Henri maintains. “It wants easy to operate cutting performance.”
Its latest machines are the BSR bridge saws, which range from a 1m to a 3m. The 1200 has table dimension of 3m x 1600mm and a 22kW motor. It weighs 6.5tonnes, can cut up to 3m x 1600mm x 450mm. The table rotates through 3600 with fixed points at 0, 90, 180 and 2700 and a manual brake to fix it in any other position.
The 3m can cut up to 2.5m x 1800mm x 1350mm. It carries a 37-65kW motor. It includes safety features that allow it to be left unattended sawing several large blocks at a time in an automatic sequence, so the rails can be 10-11m long.