Woodworking with
modern technology
ante group: With automation to the peak of Europe's wood industry
For Martin Linden, a sawmill is an extremely large machine "for turning round timber into wood with corners." Linden is the master electrician and maintenance engineer at ante-holz GmbH. The company is one of the leading timber enterprises in Europe with four plants in Germany and Poland. At the headquarters of the ante group in Bromskirchen-Somplar the plant premises occupy an area of 58 hectares with four saw lines, production lines for construction lumber, glued laminated timber and sawn timber. The site also includes impregnating halls, grading areas and round lumber storage areas, a pellet plant and a total of three thermal power stations where 14 MW of heating capacity and 2 MW of electrical power are generated with bark and wood chips. This allows for 100 percent utilisation of raw materials.
The group has 750 employees, with 250 working in three shifts in the Bromskirchen plant. Every machine at ante is equipped with numerous sensors. They forward information about the operating states or positions of the workpieces to the relevant programmable logic controller which every machine has. The harsh environment with heavy accumulation of dust makes great demands on the sensors.
Optimised spare parts logistics
Martin Linden was looking on the Internet for ways to optimise production when he came across autosen.com. To reduce possible machine downtimes to a minimum, the master electrician has set up a separate spare parts warehouse with autosen sensors. In addition to fast availability at a high level, the excellent terms offered by autosen are important for ante. Since the company buys exclusively replacements for faulty sensors it is barely possible to estimate the need in advance. Based on the positive experience, all position sensor systems will be replaced with autosen products wherever possible in the medium to long term.




About the ante group
The family-owned ante group is one of the leading wood industry companies in Germany and Europe. Since it was founded in 1927 as a sawmill in Winterberg (North Rhine-Westphalia), the company has developed through sustainable and long-term growth to become the ante group of today, which processes softwoods into ultra modern wood products to be sold around the world.