Waldale Irwin Hodson Group (WIHG) is North America’s largest private manufacturer of licence plates, servicing 20 American states and Canadian provinces. The combined output of WIHG’s multiple factories results in 11 million plates printed per year in nearly 1000 different designs. The licence plate manufacturing process begins with massive coils of aluminium, which are fed into a press line that stamps out standard blanks of 6” x 12” rectangles with rounded corners. These blanks go on to a traditional embossing process. 

Sutherland Presses has been a manufacturing partner for WIHG since 1996. Jean Bourque, WIHG’s engineering manager for tooling, relies on Sutherland to meet the high standard of quality and efficiency that such a high volume of output demands: “I like it when I can deal with the owners directly. I also like that the presses are made with North American parts.” 

In March of 2016, one of WIHG’s factories was in need of a new press for its blank stamping line. Bourque knew that Sutherland was his best bet: “I didn’t do a lot of shopping around.”

Sutherland and WIHG agreed that the right press for the job was the next generation of the Mark series press.

The Gen 2 Mark series single-point gap-frame press exemplifies Sutherland’s commitment to innovation in metal forming, with numerous improvements made over the first generation. Featuring more steel in the C-section of the frame, angular deflection is reduced under full stamping loads, allowing for better performance in bottom coining, and permitting WIHG to form the letters of the plate with reliable high definition. Furthermore, the slide guides are designed with a taper wedge to assure long die life during production runs.

More information www.sutherlandpresses.com