Specialty Paper Maker Upgrades to New Fully Automatic “Expando” Slitting System
Double E recently worked with a customer who was having
inefficiency problems with one of their slitting sections. The company
is a producer of technical, filter, and specialty papers that runs a
variety of materials and setups for a wide range of customers. Often,
they will run one setup for each master roll, requiring several knife
setups per shift. The facility runs two shifts during the day; each with
two operators. Setup time often takes half an hour as the tolerances
required as tight as +/- 0.015". Unfortunately, this setup would be done
by the human eye and a set of calipers. It would require the operators
to make setup changes until their computer system accepted a sample slit
that was in tolerance. Running up to seventeen master rolls per shift
proved that there was a significant amount of wasted time, and
ultimately, wasted money each day.
Double E assisted with the company's inefficiency problem by providing a new fully automatic Mario Cotta "Expando" slitting system.
This system consisted of a custom "Expando" slitting station that would
be retrofitted to the customer's existing Menzel machine. The station
would be installed with twenty Mario Cotta "Gold" series holders connected to a new computerized control panel.
The setup proved tricky since the
web path needed to be changed to tangential with individual anvils which
is required for any automatic system. To begin the installation, the
old knife rail and anvil shaft had to be removed. Then a section of the
back panel of the drive side cabinet and tending side cabinet had to be
cutout in order for the new slitting station to be fit into position.
Once the station was securely mounted, the chain drive system had to be
rerouted to accommodate the new position of the knife shaft. Next, two
new electro-pneumatic control boxes were mounted on brackets over the
drive cabinet and the hoses were fed into the machine through the cutout
in the cabinet's back panel. Once the system was connected to the
control panel, and the holders and anvils were installed, the system
could then be fully calibrated.
The Double E / Mario Cotta fully
automatic positioning solution allowed the customer to reduce setup time
to less than three minutes and allowed the customer to reassign one
operator from each shift to other responsibilities in the plant. The
customer will realize the return on their investment in just a few
months since they can increase the throughput of the machine each day
and also reduce the overhead of their employees on that machine.
Additionally, they no longer have to rely on the ability of an operator
to set the knife holders to a tolerance of +/-0.015" as the system will
do that for them. The customer only has to enter the number of slits and
slit width into the computer and the system will automatically position
the knife holder and anvil relative to each other. The system also
allows the customer to realize additional time and cost savings by using
the "Gold" knife holder and "Expando" style anvils.
The customer's initial reaction to
the system was pure amazement. Once the operators were trained on the
new software, the customer could see firsthand how this new system would
save them time and money. Double E is now discussing with the customer
about a similar system, with a smaller number of knife holders, for
their adjacent slitter.
