Web-Handling: Looking back and looking forward
David Roisum, Ph.D., Consulting Technical Editor -- Converting Magazine, 11/1/2008 2:00:00 AM
A quarter-century has brought many positive changes to web-handling. The most obvious is computer control of our machinery. However, the most important may be simple name recognition. No matter what the chemistry or the construction of your web, no matter whether you manufacture, convert or use; web-handling is fundamental to what you do. Widely varying industries found common ground in topics of interest such as guiding, slitting, winding and wrinkle reduction to name a few. We learned from each other. We learned that applied science could reduce waste and delay beyond what mere craft and occasionally witchcraft could.
Machine designs began to reflect this new science. Some industries, such as printing, were changed overnight by technologies borrowed from other web industries. Load-cell tension, precision roller alignment, servo-drive control and optical defect detection took printing to a level that would have been unimaginable a decade or two ago. New products could take advantage of web-handling and jump start production with less trial and error. Electronics of all sorts, foam, filters, medical products and even food went from batch to web without having to learn web-handling from scratch.
Several mechanisms enabled this revolution. First, there was a meteoric rise in published web-handling content. A quarter century ago what little that was written about web-handling was well buried within a particular industry such as paper. Now, we have dozens of books and thousands of articles and columns. Second, trade shows and conferences started to include regular web-handling content. Today, there are two entire conferences solely dedicated to the subject. Third, we have formal web-handling training. No training was available when I started three decades ago. Now, multi-day web-handling courses are taught by four independent instructors and several more by internal experts in large companies. While thousands have been trained in web-handling, there are hundreds of thousands more that could benefit.
Surprisingly, the Internet has yet to catch up in our industry. Very little of the total web-handling content is currently on the Net. It's not due to lack of effort. Web-machine builders, trade organizations and magazines have put some information online but have failed almost totally in the area of training despite many attempts. I think the challenge is primarily monetization rather than lack of need or delivery mechanism. Also, Internet searches are problematic if you look for topics such as coating, winding, wrinkling, etc., all of which have many non-web-handling meanings.
Unfortunately, some areas of web-handling have stalled out. Economic and other pressures have caused many machine builders/component suppliers to go out of business and many others to merge. We continue to rely on supplier expertise to guide us in everything from purchasing to operating to troubleshooting and upgrading a web machine. However, they have lost people and are stretched thin. Pilot labs, R&D, libraries and other sources of new ideas have been all but shut down at suppliers and customers alike.
Now what? Certainly we need to do a better job putting web-handling content on the Internet. We also need to continue training because individuals and companies alike must become more self-reliant. We could consider certifying web handlers much as we do carpenters, plumbers and kayak instructors. Finally, we could hyphenate “web-handling” because handling is a vital part of all web manufacturing, converting and end use.
920/312-8466, www.roisum.com
Focus on Web Handling
02/28/2005Why isn't my web flat?
11/30/2003
