Machine change-over time in production is an issue affecting the profitable operation of packaging lines and can present a critical bottleneck. The challenge for Elesa was to greatly reduce the time taken for machine switchovers on packaging lines installed on site at their end users.
Explained Nigel Pritchett MD at Elesa (UK) “machine downtime for our customers and their end-users can become a major problem while they re-set each roller spindle manually. Fortunately, we have a solution readily available in the form of our unique wireless digital electronic positioning system.”
“These units are a like-for-like replacement for conventional items and the connected system allows up to 36 position indicators to be re-set all together from a PC link. This saves time compared to re-setting each one individually for different packaging configurations.”
RF electronic positioning indicators are unique in the market, enabling wireless communication with a PLC, resulting in faster, more efficient machine set-up and change over processes. The wireless system enables a quick and reliable machine set up – achieved by the use of a linked controller, which displays the initial set-up values on each of the electronic position indicators.
An operator can simply choose the appropriate menu, then quickly re-set each spindle to its correct start position and the machine is “good to go”. This saves large amounts of time and greatly reduces the possibility of human error every time the line is changed or recalibrated.
Customer feedback has been that “The Elesa wireless electronic positioning system enables faster and more reliable machine set up by the use of a wireless connected profile controller, which displays the initial set up values on each of the electronic position indicators.”
This flexibility enables the Elesa system to be adapted as a mainstream option on all such machines and ensures it may be retrofitted to existing installations when upgrading a complete facility.
