Sustainability is an important part of the ethos of Hope Technology and runs through the heart of the company.
As their website states ‘cycling & bikes are the key to a sustainable lifestyle’, so it’s only natural that working in an environmentally friendly way has to be at the heart of the business too.
Environmental responsibility is an integral part of the culture of the company as Hope have been involved in positive green initiatives for over 10 years. From starting their own ‘Ride To Work’ employee scheme in 2010 by offering a bike to all staff – something which is still in place 14 years on, to supporting a government ‘Get Britain Cycling’ campaign in 2013.
Hope have actively looked to bring in as many sustainable practices as possible across all elements of the business for a while now. From the manufacturing processes and shop floor practices, packaging improvements and product longevity, to their repair & servicing offer to their customers.
Having committed to improving their packaging to become 100% plastic-free, the company also introduced the use of vegetable based ink for their box printing.
Already reclaiming and filtering their machine coolant for reuse, Hope wanted to level up their metallic waste recycling by improving the process of managing their aluminium curly & chipped swarf. This new system allows them to reclaiming more of their coolant and reap the benefits of the cost savings from that too.
The brief was to briquette all of the waste aluminium generated in the factory comprising of the curly swarf from the turning machines, the chipped swarf from the milling machines and the fine swarf from their saws.
But as life is never that simple, there were a few unavoidable problems we needed to overcome!
Firstly, there was the presence of cut offs from the bar fed turning machines as well as stray parts in the curly swarf.
Secondly, there are knock outs present from the milling process as well as stray billets going into the swarf occasionally.
We were able to design a bespoke system in collaboration with two of our suppliers by installing an automatic crusher fitted with a vibrating separator and a swarf briquetting machine system.
The complete system comprises at the first stage Fama TC 400 crusher allowing all the curly swarf to be crushed whilst still separating all the cut off from the bar fed machines and the knockouts from the milled billets and the stray solids.
The second stage the Hocker Polytechnik iSwarf 550 briquette machine straight onto the output of the crusher so there would be no problems with solid parts or billets entering the machine.
The key benefits to this system stack up as follows:
The curly swarf is made more manageable so all waste swarf can be briquetted to save storage space – this is a reduction in recycler pick-ups from Hope to a ratio of 19-1.
The pressed swarf briquettes are more valuable as the recycler is able to offer a better price for better quality aluminium.
Because of the reduction in costs and the increase in pay back for their waste aluminium, the pay-back for this system to Hope will be less than a year.
This investment was a key part of further reducing Hope’s carbon footprint in line with their environmental strategy and is a demonstration of how cost-effective manufacturing can lead to sustainable manufacturing processes and achievements as well as significant monetary savings.