New RIBA-Assessed Factory Tour CPD
Mumford & Wood, manufacturer of Britain’s finest timber windows and doors, has launched a RIBA-Assessed factory tour CPD. This follows substantial investment in their extended state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Tiptree, Essex.

Welcome to Mumford & Wood
On your arrival and welcome there is a short Prezi presentation followed by the Factory Tour itself, and a brief Q & A session over a light lunch and refreshments. PPE is provided but if visitors want to see the entire factory please bring safety footwear. All the support material will be provided on a neat wooden branded USB to take away.
“It’s important you take-the-tour and walk-the-walk because we want to change any misconceptions you may still have about timber windows and doors”, says Frank Buckley, managing director, Mumford & Wood. “We have indeed come a long way since site finishing and windows that rot, warp and stick.”
Visitors who take the factory tour at the companies HQ in Tiptree, Essex, will see the production of Mumford & Wood’s beautiful timber windows and doors from the very start of the process with the selection of the timber and the main production processes right through to the localised finishing operations, assembly and glazing, quality inspection, wrapping and despatch.
Isabelle Priestly, RIBA Journal Products in Practice, says of the tour: “As one of the most technically advanced manufacturing sites PiP has yet visited, and with all the skills and knowledge present, it is definitely worth it.”
To book the Factory Tour CPD for parties of up to six, please call 01621 818155 or click here.
RIBA Core Curriculum: Designing and Building It: design, construction, technology and engineering
Knowledge level: General Awareness
Factory
tour: approx. 1 hour
- Starting in the timber storage warehouse visitors will
receive a full description and introduction to the timber used in the
manufacture of Mumford & Wood’s Conservation™ products. Presently a combination of
predominately Larch or Red Grandis together with Mahogany and modified
timber is used, all of which is FSC certified. The benefits of engineered timber is
fully explained which underlines the inherent characteristics of strength
and stability.
It is here that a £60,000 investment has been made on
a fully optimised Weinig Opticut DimterLine Crosscut machine. Lengths of timber are fed into the
machine for scanning where it is marked to identify and remove defects,
optimising the remainder of the high grade timber and effectively reducing
waste. The information for the cutting list is fed directly from the Company’s
bespoke ERP system to eliminate any possibility of error.
- Also here is the new Weinig Powermat 1200 which has been
installed at a cost of £180,000.
This moulder planes the timber all round preparing two of the sides
for the next operation and the other two sides for the final finishing
operation. The machine is also fitted with the latest quick-change tooling
to allow the Company to produce the extensive range of beads and bars
which form part of the assembled product.
- The
prepared, engineered timber now leaves the warehouse and moves into the
state-of-the art manufacturing zone. Here the individual components can
follow two distinct manufacturing processes. The older of the two methods
utilises the existing Weinig Unicontrol 10 Windowline which will automatically produce tenon joints as well as what will become
the internal profile of the assembled part. From this machine the components travel
to the cramping section where the individual components are assembled into
a complete sash or frame. The assembled sash will then be
moved to either the 4 or 5 axis CNC router (figs 21 and 19) so that the
external profile, together with any ancillary machining such as that
required for the ironmongery or trickle vents, can be undertaken.
- The
alternative process uses a new, fully automated Homag Profiline which has recently been installed at a cost of £700,000 + £300,000
of tooling. It features three machining heads each of which has
its own tooling store from which the appropriate
tool can be automatically selected depending on the component being
manufactured. The Profiline, which relies on smart and efficient planning
and software programming for total manufacturing efficiency, reduces
manual handling as well as the number of operations required to bring it
to the same finishing stages as the Unicontrol and CNC router
combined. These reduced processes
contribute heavily toward Lean Manufacturing Principles derived from the
Japanese automotive industry and adopted by Mumford & Wood.
- The
Mumford & Wood range of internally glazed Conservation ™ windows and
doors introduced in 2013 require the manufacture of an accurate ‘cassette’ of any bars required. The Stegherr scribing and notching machine, also newly installed at a cost of £50,000, enables the various
components to be accurately cut from the pre-moulded bead which then
allows the cassette assembly to be completed to a high degree of
repeatability.
“The investment in the state-of-the-art computer
controlled machinery has enabled Mumford & Wood to replace a great deal of
the manual work on the more straightforward products, thus allowing our
craftsmen and women to channel their efforts to more skilled work, including
the production of specials, such as bay windows and curved heads, that require
specialist hand finishing and which for them is more interesting and
rewarding.”
- Conservation™ windows and doors are spray finished and
supplied with three coats of high quality micro-porous paint or
stain. The paint shop in the manufacturing zone has been significantly increased in size to
allow a continuous loop production line.
This enables the whole process to be completed without the need for
the operator to handle the products.
In particular this removes the need to man-handle them and move to
separate work benches in order to undertake localised finishing operations
such as de-nibbing. This improves both the speed of operation as well as
removing any potential damage caused in the handling procedure. Yet another contribution to Lean
Manufacturing Principles.
- All
double glazed panels delivered to the Assembly and Glazing shop are first
100% checked for defects and rejected where necessary, even if inevitable
delays are created to the production cycle. In most cases the supplier
responds quickly enough so that this delay does not affect the promised
delivery to the customer and helps the Company build and maintain an
enviable reputation for ‘delivery on time in full’. Mumford & Wood use toughened glass
as standard which means that all double glazed units carry the BSI
Kitemark.
- As
products travel through the final stages of production they are quality
checked and inspected by glaziers, finishers and wrappers meaning that every product goes through a triple inspection
process. Effectively each
department is the customer of the preceding manufacturing process and a
defect of any kind could stop a job if considered questionable.
- Technology
has been introduced to the production floor allowing team leaders to
update production planning quickly and efficiently. This allows immediate identification of
the status of a project and is leading the way towards paperless
administration.
- New
production offices have been constructed adjacent to the production floor where senior management can work more closely with production
floor procedures to achieve a Total Quality Management philosophy together
with company-wide processes that focus totally on customer needs.