Pilous was established in 1994 in the Czech Republic and its first products included band saws for cutting metal. From the very beginning, the company focused mainly on the quality, robustness, and accuracy of the machines produced. An important milestone in the company’s history was the takeover of the product portfolio from FORESTOR, the UK based company, which practically marked the beginning of the production of bandsaw mills for woodworking in Pilous. In 1997, Pilous introduced the first sawmills manufactured by their own team, which were a great success both on the domestic market and especially abroad.
Apart from the domestic sales, about 90% of PILOUS products are exported into more than 70 countries in all continents. Metal-cutting PILOUS band saws are used also in the NASA or Baikonur space centers, nuclear power plant Dukovany, manufacturing plants of ROLEX watches or on overseas ships.
Apart from demanding markets in Europe, the bandsaw mills work reliably even in the harsh frost of Siberia or in forests in Africa, South America, or Asia.
Easy Engineering: What are the ranges of products?
PILOUS: The company provides a wide range of top-quality bandsaws and many accessories to both metal and wood cutting. Apart from this main production, we also offer conveyors, saw blades, deburring machines, tooth setters, saw band sharpeners, etc.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends and at what stage is the market where you are currently active?
PILOUS: The market with metal cutting machines is in the doldrums. Unfortunately, at this moment we are facing to the lack of electrical components like other machine producers.
Due to the gradual automation across all industries, customers are increasingly demanding not only higher quality and durability of products, but especially the facilitation of heavy physical work and the acceleration of all work processes.
E.E: What’s the news about new products and what are the most innovative products marketed?
PILOUS: We have extensive experience with the automation process in the field of band saws for metal cutting due to working together with the French producer of automatic devices. For several years we were developing a special operating system Sentinel, designed to operate automatic band saws. This system will be presented on the automatic machines during MSV Brno fair at the beginning of October in the Czech Republic.
Of course, automatization penetrates into the wood section of our development. Recently, we have made significant progress in the development of band saws for wood. We have worked mainly on machine control and on the way the blade is guided on the CTR 1000 H60 and CTR 1300 H. New blade guiding increased productivity by about 50%.
In these days we launched a new version of the software for the CTR 750 EV, marked 2.3. We have removed language mutations and simplified the operation control so that it is more intuitive for the serving operator. Compared to the previous version, it is now possible to choose from four cutting modes. It is possible to choose a prism cutting mode, a mode with different, pre-programmed heights of the lumber pieces or identical cuts. This system has been tested on both the professional CTR 1000 H40 LX and the aforementioned CTR 750 EV, and the user response was immediate: “That’s exactly what we needed, there’s everything I’ve always counted manually”. Based on the possibility to test the new software system directly at the customer’s premises, we had the opportunity to incorporate and test the travel speed to return the arm to the starting position. Setting the limitations for the frequency converter and the re-adjustment of the end ramps allowed us to increase the speed by up to 30%.
Of course, we do not end with these innovations. There are many challenges and suggestions that we want to deal with. This year, we will focus, among other things, mainly on the ergonomics of control, which we perceive as essential for machine operators.
We greatly appreciate our customers for their loyalty and constructive comments and wish to thank them by introducing continuous improvements to our machines.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2022?
PILOUS: Unfortunately, the intricate international situation does not help to flourish this kind of business. We expect a small growth of the European economy this year only. Everything will show the second half of the year. We hope that we can get over this crazy situation soon and continue with our lives the way we used to before it all started.