COMPANY POSCHACHER
Poschacher takes off
Poschacher Natursteinwerke GmbH
A new owner, new halls and state-of-the-art machinery - after Leonhard Helbich-Poschacher took over the natural stone factory at the beginning of 2020, no stone was left unturned. With the restructuring, the company is getting ready for the major challenges in the natural stone market.
CSA 569,
FSA 561 WZW,
LDZ 2000,
KSL 100
There are companies that shape more than one era. They weather many storms and manage to adapt to change. Poschacher Natursteinwerke, headquartered in Langenstein, Upper Austria, just a few kilometers from Linz, is one such company. In its almost 185-year history, the family business has encountered rough seas several times, but has always recovered – with perseverance, but also thanks to courageous changes of course. At the beginning of 2020, entrepreneur Leonhard Helbich-Poschacher bought the natural stone works and the property from his brother Anton. Despite strong competition, Poschacher is a European leader in the design of public spaces. The most recent projects are the cathedral square in St. Pölten and – most recently – the Burggarten in Vienna. The company currently has 98 employees, the majority of whom work at the headquarters in Langenstein.
The mainstays of Poschacher Natursteinwerke are construction and civil engineering, but the company also supplies stones for the production of measuring tables. An important source of revenue is the gravestone sector. Wall stones, slabs and paving stones for gardening and landscaping also contribute a large proportion. The company only supplies corporate customers and its main markets are Austria, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
In order to equip the family business for the future, Leonhard Helbich-Poschacher has invested considerable funds – in the purchase of land for the production facility in Langenstein, extensive renovation work on existing halls and storage areas as well as in new halls and new technical infrastructure such as photovoltaics, compressed air generation and water treatment. The aim is to make production faster and more efficient, while at the same time being able to react flexibly to constantly changing customer requirements and order sizes, explains Sales Director Andreas Sigl.
Lots of new machines
For this reason, almost the entire machine park is new.
Burkhardt-Löffler is the main supplier with two five-axis saws, a surface sander, two processing and sawing centers and two edge sanding machines. The task for the machine manufacturer was to cover the entire product portfolio, from kerbstones to gravestones, with the exception of the block sawmill, explains customer consultant Thomas Straßner from Burkhardt-Löffler. „Concentrating on one machine manufacturer offers us the advantage of having standardized controls and interfaces and also receiving support and service from a single source,“ says Andreas Sigl, explaining the decision.
Short internal paths
When reorganizing production, great importance was attached to a smooth flow of materials. After the raw blocks have been cut on the wire saws in the primary sawmill, the tranches and slabs intended for building products or tombstone production are transported to the respective sawing halls. There, two-massive five-axis saws from Burkhardt-Löffler, type CSA 567 and CSA 569, ensure fast cutting. The CSA 569 is designed for saw blades up to 1,600 millimetres, has a 24-metre-long track and was designed for use with vacuum suction cups for the first time in this dimension. Burkhardt-Löffler developed a special solution to meet the demand for short set-up times. The tranches, slabs, thicker sawn pieces and block sections are either placed directly on the concrete base or on vacuum suction cups or – a first – on interchangeable pallets. The approach is simple and effective: to efficiently produce paving slabs for a pedestrian zone, for example, the wire-sawed tranches are placed directly on top of each other and the pallets equipped with a saw support are lifted onto the machine track using the indoor crane. After sawing overnight or over the weekend, the crane lifts the pallets together with the sawn pieces and transports them to one of the next processing stations. The saw is free again in a very short time and the saw pieces can be picked up at the next position with vacuum lifters, which is easy on the back.
A central station after the primary cut is the new hydraulic splitting system from the manufacturer MEC. It also follows the principle of short distances and minimal interruptions in the material flow. The panels to be split are transported via a conveyor belt from the neighboring hall to the first splitting beam, which splits them at 90 degrees to the direction of transport. The resulting strips retain their alignment and automatically roll along the hall wall to the right to the next splitting station. They are then either lifted off or conveyed to the blasting cabinet. In times when large orders are becoming rarer, speed and flexibility count, explains Andreas Sigl. As a result, Poschacher is able to serve niche markets as well as large series.
Modern tombstone production
The FSA 561 WZW surface grinder from Burkhardt-Löffler with automatic tool change and the LDZ 2000 processing center work in the tombstone hall. With its two separate work tables, this is designed for a wide range of work for construction and tombstone production. In addition to sawing and milling work, the machine can also process the edges of gravestones with oscillating grinding and polishing rollers. Opposite is an LDZ 2000 K, another saw for fast cutting. The next station for the workpieces are two side grinders. In addition to the KSL 100 bench edging machine, Burkhardt-Löffler installed a KSA 542 automatic sanding machine with automatic tool changer. Slabs, but also tombstone edgings, are placed on the table. The last position before the final inspection and commissioning is the manual sanding area. Because automated production can occasionally lead to dull spots or other small errors despite all the precision, a great deal of importance was attached to sufficient daylight when the new hall was built. The light coming in through the large hall windows not only allows the hand grinders to polish perfectly, but also creates pleasant working conditions. Satisfied employees and modern technology are the basic prerequisites for high-quality results – Poschacher is well prepared for the future.
Quick Information
About the company
With its long tradition, Poschacher Natursteinwerke is a modern production company that covers almost all product areas of the natural stone industry with modern machinery. The company supplies cast stone from NEUHAUSER, AALFANGER and HERSCHENBERGER GRANIT as well as from GEBHARTSER SYENIT. Quarries in Perg and Heidlbrunn supply armourstone, quarry products and crushed stone products. In addition, all international classics for construction and gravestone production are available as raw material, semi-finished and finished products for stonemasons.
Images: Richard Watzke
