World’s most powerful laser coming to North Carolina

By Jenna Shackelford, posted Sep 1, 2021 on BizFayetteville.com

The laser, which will be the first of its kind in the state and the second of its kind in North America, will likely be in use by January or February. *Photo by Fremont Machinery*

The Godwin Group is preparing to bring the world’s most powerful CNC laser fiber machine to North Carolina.
“This is made over in Germany by a company called Eagle Laser,” said
Ryan Taylor, president of The Godwin Group. “Why is it the most powerful and the fastest? Well, the power is great. They always could make these things stronger in kilowatts but you can’t make the machine go any faster cutting the material, so there’s no benefit in having the higher kilowatt power of the laser.”
This laser, however, can move fast enough that Godwin Group can take advantage of the power. The machine features 20kw cutting power, 6g acceleration, and 13,780 ipm top simultaneous traverse speed.
Not only is the laser the most powerful in the world and coming to North Carolina for the first time, but it is only the second of its kind in North America.
“That’s in Pennsylvania,” said Taylor. “That’s actually the machine we went to look at when we started looking at [the laser].”
Soon, The Godwin Group hopes to complete construction that is currently underway for a building to house the machine that clocks in at 11,000 square feet. The physical machine and its automation hold two tractor trailer loads on the racks that automatically feed the system.
Altogether, the machine is probably 65 feet by 50 feet.
The laser itself should arrive in November, and the automation will be custom built and in use by January or February.
“We currently run three plasma machines with 12 employees, 16 hours a day. This one machine with two employees in eight hours will outproduce what those three machines are doing in 16 hours,” Taylor said.
The new laser costs over four million dollars.
The Godwin Group’s state-of-the-art equipment addition will come as no surprise to people familiar with the company; after all, it has a track record of expansions, acquisitions and successes nationwide since its humble beginnings in 1961.
The Godwin Group was founded in Dunn by Pat Godwin Sr. out of his back yard. His first company was Godwin Manufacturing. As the business grew, it handled NCDOT’s, Virginia’s, and other states’ contracts.
In the early 2000s, R/S, a company owned by Standard Automotive in Kentucky, was purchased by Godwin and is now called R/S-Godwin.
The next year, the oldest dump truck bed manufacturer in the company, Galion Truck Bodies, was almost foreclosed on. Godwin purchased the company, which is now Galion-Godwin.
Godwin also bought the old Champion manufacturing facility and started Champion Hoist & Equipment Co. which has 70 models of hoists, which is the most of any other manufacturer in the country.
The laser will go in the hoist manufacturing plant.
The company also acquired Williamson which is the oldest trailer manufacturer in the country in Utah.
Godwin acquired Good Roads Plows and Spreaders from Indiana, the oldest snow plow company in the country and renamed it Good Roads by Godwin.
The Godwin Group has an import/export company where they buy metal castings from all over the world.
Two years ago, they started Allied Mobile Hydraulics Systems which handles snow and ice hydraulics. “We’ve got a lot of history up under our umbrella,” Taylor said. And with the arrival of the new laser, it looks like The Godwin Group is about to make some more history.

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