“Our company objective is ambitious: We strive for one hundred percent customer satisfaction. Our comprehensive employee and apprentice training activities as well as the consistent use of innovative technology in all areas, contribute significantly to this," says owner and managing director Oliver Bantli. His father founded his carpentry business in 1982 in Eschenz, Switzerland, on the premises of an old joinery. Business growth has been steady since the very beginning.
Oliver Bantli joined the company in 1999 and the steady growth continues. CNC technology and planning support through 3D CAD made their appearance in the early 2000s. As one of the first companies in the Swiss carpentry industry, Bantli attaches great importance to the most comprehensive data consistency possible throughout the entire company. The buildings also keep pace with the company's growth, and are constantly being expanded or converted. Currently, Bantli AG operates on about 2,200 m² with a storage area of 1,700 m².
About 470 m² are available for administration and planning. The ancillary rooms, including staff and snack rooms, cover 2,000 m². A furniture and interior design exhibition on over 500 m² at the company headquarters has been used for thorough customer consultation for almost six years. With a branch office in Regensdorf, Bantli offers customers in Zurich and surroundings a comprehensive portfolio of services and advice.
Energy self-sufficient
Innovative technology for its own operations and a green footprint are equally high on Bantli's agenda. Using gas from Russia and oil from the Middle East as energy sources for heating is out of bounds. In Eschenz, wood waste has been used to generate heat since 2012. A wood chip heating system burns chips, sawdust and shredded wood waste. It is not only the company's own buildings that benefit from this carbon-free energy generation.
A further 18 properties in the neighbourhood are connected to each other in a heating network. And almost a matter of course with such an eco-conscious attitude: photovoltaic systems generate electricity on all suitable roofs in the surrounding area. “It is important to me to set an example of ecological sustainability for my children,” explains Oliver Bantli his commitment to the heating network and the installation of the PV systems.
Seeing and feeling surfaces
The look and feel of doors, furniture and wall panelling must be equally convincing. “Natural”, “durable”, “elegant” and “attractive” are adjectives that apply to surface finishing. A rather special challenge for interior designers and furniture manufacturers. The range of different materials requires a high level of flexibility just and it takes the highest possible economic efficiency despite at times small batch sizes.
In order to meet these requirements in the best possible way to the satisfaction of the customer, Bantli AG has been working with a manual spraying station for years. Experienced painters manually apply the desired surface finishing with spray guns. As a result of the increasing requirements and larger numbers of incoming orders, the spraying station gradually became a bottleneck in the production process. Also because has been increasingly difficult to find skilled staff for this field of work. Oliver Bantli therefore had envisaged a preferably automated solution, in order to avoid bottlenecks in the important field of surface finishing.
Unmanned and efficient with ROBUSeco
“The ingenious concept of the ROBUSeco spray coating line developed and built for us by Bürkle had us convinced on the spot. Data consistency and, above all, a very high degree of automation were important for us,” says Bantli, who is fully convinced of his decision in favour of a system from the surface specialist from the Black Forest. The high degree of automation is accomplished perfectly through the combination of workpiece cleaning, integrated automatic turning unit and the largely automatic removal and loading of the rack trolleys.
The spray painting machine and its upstream and downstream machines thus enable almost unmanned, individual coating of highest quality. The installation of the ROBUSeco opens up an additional business segment for Bantli. Bantli can now also offer cost-efficient contract work in the field of coating to fellow carpenters. This perfectly complements the already well-proven cooperation with colleagues in the field or parts production (cutting/CNC/edge processing).
Versatile expansion options
Robert Bürkle GmbH entered the spray coating segment with its first machines in 2017. The company from Freudenstadt, Germany, has realised a large number of projects to date. The range extends from stand-alone machines to highly automated ‘batch 1’ lines. Thanks to the high flexibility of the Robus spray coating concept, workpiece materials and their geometry are of little importance. A special edge spray gun, for example, was developed for the Bantli application.
High edges, which regularly occur when coating doors, can thus be coated in top quality. Thanks to the combination of automated surface finishing and the traditional manual spraying station, Bantli now sees itself very well positioned for the near future in this area. And what’s more: “Since we started producing with the ROBUSeco, we keep discovering more possible applications that we had not even thought of before. Bürkle proves to be a partner who is always prepared to make appropriate adjustments, extensions or conversions,” Oliver Bantli states. In his experience, even the software adaptations that usually become necessary for the quite complex plant are in good hands with the Bürkle specialists. “So far, they have found a solution for every requirement.”