Full-tilt production stirs up profits

These enterprising slitting and rewinding operations illustrate the trend to higher capacity, wider-width machinery and speeds unheard of just four years ago.

By Associate Editor Ela Fruscione -- Converting Magazine, 9/1/1999

"How can I make more product in less time?" is the eternal converting question. As these four converters at the top of the slitting and rewinding game illustrate, investing in the latest capital equipment, preferably with touchscreen control and job recipe storage, is one answer.

Each demonstrates how new machinery can be the foundation on which to build stronger customer relationships. For Pagell Corp., wider widths and larger diameter rewinds give its converting customers maximum efficiencies in their operations. Consistent quality enables Roosevelt Paper Co.'s customers to run at higher speeds with less web breaks. Europe's Armor slits thermal-transfer ribbon film into finished product at a rate of 40,000 rolls/day, so speed is a must to keep its customers happy. And, Web Converting's expanded thin-film slitting capacity is a direct result of increased customer demand.

Ready, set, JIT

Many of Pagell Corp.'s customers (label stock manufacturers, label printers and others) have asked about the availability of a wider machine, says its president Richard Kane. "It seems that the industry at large is going in that direction. Wider widths and larger diameter rewinds give [out customer's] maximum efficiencies on the machines that will be used in the ultimate product, whether it be printing machines or label printers."

After 45 years in business, the Holliston, Mass.-based contract converter anticipates a substantial increase in sales due to its capital equipment investments. A new, wider, 84-in.-wide Dusenbery Model 800 duplex slitter/rewinder is a testament to its commitment to its customers and the future. Besides the width, diameter and weight capacity, the speed of Pagell's operation has been greatly enhanced. Running up to 2,500 fpm, the Model 800 doubles the speed of its two Dusenbery slitters purchased in 1995.

"We now can offer our customers the ability to slit narrow widths and very lightweight products to very wide widths at maximum speeds, and maximize the efficiency of the end products we are slitting," says Kane. "JIT delivery has become of paramount importance," Kane adds, referring to the competitive markets their customers find themselves in.

"We have a great respect for [Dusenbery] and the service and support that they have given us over the last four years," he says. Pagell bought the first two of its five Dusenbery machines in 1995: a 62-in.-wide Model 835 duplex center-winder with 50-in.-dia. unwind and 24-in.-dia. rewind, and a Model 280 duplex center-surface winder with 50-in.-dia. unwind and 42-in.-dia. rewind. (Pagell has total of 12 shear and razor-cut slitter/rewinders at its 70,000-sq-ft facility.)

The installation and startup of the Model 800 only took one week. Model 800 can slit from 2 to 84 in., although overall the company can slit down to 0.25 in. Model 800 can rewind to 50 in. in diameter. Its 72-in.-dia. Model 324 unwind can handle a 10,000-lb roll.

An Allen-Bradley PLC tension control system makes the operation even more consistent and repeatable. It provides constant tension and features touchscreen operator input, and memory to store over 300 job recipes. A Fife air edge-guide system or Erhardt & Leimer photo-optic guide sensor compliments the slitting operation, depending on the application.

The Dusenbery's center-surface winding is perfect for materials with high tensile strength, such as packaging films, label stock, paper and laminates, says director of sales Bill Lemke. The Dusenbery provides "more responsiveness and better tension control, speed and quality of product."

The Model 800 shear-cuts material and is primarily used for wide, large-diameter rolls of label stock, paper, nonwovens, PVC, holographic material and metallized papers.

Anticipating additional volume from its new machine and increased workloads from other machines, a recent 20,000-sq-ft expansion of its original 50,000-sq-ft facility gives Pagell additional warehousing space for JIT delivery.

Faster than a speeding bullet

Paper merchant and converter Roosevelt Paper Co., Mt. Laurel, N.J. has seen it all in its 66 years in the business. But nothing compares to the breakneck speed of the latest machinery.

"Today, everything is geared for higher speeds and higher productivity," says John Muhic, director of facilities management.

From lightweight papers to board, Roosevelt slits and winds stock to fit almost any converting and printing requirement. In its search for a winding equipment vendor, Roosevelt was looking for consistent quality of rolls, regardless of basis weight or grade, says Muhic. "We wanted ease of setting the slitter, quick changeover time, control of density and profile of the roll in the winding." During this time, Roosevelt also made a decision to rebuild two existing 84-in.-wide Jagenberg slitter/rewinders, one housed in its Chicago plant and the other in Mt. Laurel (see sidebar).

To improve service to its U.S. customers in the northeast, Roosevelt installed a new 95-in.-wide A&F RDC 2060 winder, unwind and roll wrapper at its new 476,000-sq-ft facility in Mt. Laurel. "By letting us convert a greater number of rolls in a greater variety, [the A&F machinery lets us] take just about any order that we come across," says Muhic. (Roosevelt also had two A&F slitter/rewinders in operation at each of its facilities in Forest Park, Ill., and Richwood, Ky.)

Since the Mt. Laurel installation, Roosevelt has noted a big increase in its past average productivity rate of 5,000 lb/hr to the present rate of 9,000 lb/hr. President Ted Kosloff, son of founder Irv Kosloff, says, "We can now deliver faster and better quality paper." This, in turn, enables its customers to run at higher speeds, with less web breaks, he says.

To ensure a high-speed hassle-free operation, Roosevelt custom designed a trim removal system for its slitter/rewinders. "If you don't have a trim system that can take the trim away fast enough, it governs the speed of your machine and your converting," says Muhic. It trims 1/4 in. to 3 in. off various size rolls in combination with the new A&F winder at 6,000 fpm.

The A&F winder was installed by Roosevelt with A&F advisors. For quicker size changes at these high speeds, it was upgraded with low-inertia vent-grooved rolls (with pneumatic brakes) before and after Tidland shear-cut knives.

A&F shaftless backstands are located on the rewinders. The RSH 72 unwind features two Montalvo air-cooled disk brakes and automatic web guide control. The unwind is capable of handling 72-in.-dia. rolls on the backstand, and 60-in.-dia. finished rolls.

The new equipment and refurbished Jagenbergs have OSHA-approved safety stops and eyes, which sense if someone is in a danger zone (where rolls are being lowered or when the machine is starting up).

To complete the process, rolls move to a wrapping station where a new PLC-controlled A&F R-6 roll wrapper sits.

Job storage strikes a chord

Nantes, France-based Armor is a manufacturer of consumables for laser, inkjet and barcode printers. With thermal transfer ribbon (TTR) film slit into finished products at a rate of 40,000 rolls/day, production speed and quality is key to business success. SM Engineering's new Quadro 400 exceeds these two goals.

Armor engineers participated in several SME meetings in the development phase of the SME Quadro 400. Nevertheless, they were surprised by the improvements in high-speed production.

"We had the advantages of the AC servo drive concept in [SME's] previous machines," says Alain Parois, head of the mechanical research department. But he found the upgraded slitter's higher productivity, space-saving machine layout, flexible leader table, and adjustable/reproducible bending of the "banana roller" outstanding.

The 40-in.-wide machine accelerates from 0 to 1,640 fpm (its maximum speed) within 12 seconds. It features a shaftless unwind, a constant-tension driven unwind with dancer roller, and four, individual AC servo drives ‚ each with a digital controller.

Razor blade holders have been redesigned for quick setting and exchanging. Using SME blade hold-ers, the Quadro 400 can slit from 3/4 to 40 in. wide. A control panel can store up to 250 jobs, including pneumatic settings of nip roll and lay-on roller pressure.

Armor has more than 20 high-speed slitter/rewinders from SME in operation at three slitting facilities, some of them equipped with a fully automated leader application system to speed up the large machines. Its five manufacturing plants (two are ISO 9002-certified) are located in Nantes, La Chevrolieres, Germany, Poland and Morocco. A new U.S. Armor plant was established in early 1999 in Cincinnati, assisted by SME's U.S. subsidiary in Franklin, Tenn.

Due to its long relationship with SME, the May 1999 installation and startup was finished in one day. "A very close cooperation and partnership has been established, which guarantees best confidence for both sides," says Parois.

With the addition of the Quadro 400, Parois believes Armor can ride the wave of a growing industry trend: "Higher volumes of the major products will be converted with automatic equipment, and the coating width of the master rolls will be wider." (Armor coats in-house at its La Chevroliere, France, facility.)

Light-gauge film influx offers new challenge

As a contract converter, Web Converting Indianapolis has witnessed booming business. "It appears that more business in this industry are prepared to do outsourcing for some of their converting needs," says GM Karl Kussro. "We are attempting to prepare ourselves with technology, training programs, ISO registration and, perhaps, most importantly, tailoring converting solutions for our customers. We do not believe one size fits all."

After an internal survey found that its Indianapolis manufacturing plant handles a disproportionately large percent of its thin-gauge film slitting, it set a goal to increase its capacity to handle these films company-wide.

This led to the purchase of Deacro's 63-in.-wide Model DA683D slitter/rewinder with a shaftless unwind stand. "[The Deacro machine] represented more value for our dollar then the competition, offering the best combination of features, function, and price," says Kussro on the reasons Deacro was selected as the vendor.

Its sensitive tension control system (activated via a closed-loop Allen-Bradley PLC-based touch-screen) "cradles" light-gauge extensible films. Helping out are Montalvo's pneumatic brakes and a Senix ultrasonic sensor that measures roll diameter.

The driven shaftless unwind stand accommodates 63-in.-wide webs, rewinds up to a 30-in. outer diameter and unwinds up to 50-in. OD rolls. The unwind drive, driven by AC flux-vector drives, avoids stretching light-gauge extensible films.

Web Converting converts a wide range of products: paper, film, foil, metal, laminate, multilayer constructions, nonwovens, either printed or unprinted. The slit rolls, spools and sheets go into many end products, including medical, food and drug, packaging, electronics, printing, office products, consumer products and construction.

"Having the Deacro has given us the ability to be more competitive," says Kussro. The machine is used to slit material as narrow as 1 1/2 in., ranging from light-gauge film to heavy paper. Also new is a Deacro Model DA220 roll receiving/palletizing system that receives finished rolls from the slitter.

Quicker setups and changeovers were swiftly noticed after it was installed. The slitter has an easily accessible knife system to slit shear/razor or razor-in-air. Deacro features roll-lock style, differential air shafts and an actuator-driven lay-on roller system. No tool handling is required and interchangeable tooling for 3- and 6-in. cores requires no mandrel changeover. The frictionless design reportedly provides a dust-free operation.

"With greaseless operation of the machine, plus reduced handling, we are able to deliver a cleaner product to the customer," says Kussro.

"Because of the machine configuration, we are finding we can run more jobs at higher speeds than on some of our other equipment," says Kussro of the machine's 1,500-fpm capability.

Speed, wider widths and automation are the common denominators that seem to be taking converters who slit and rewind materials to new levels of business success.

More information from:

A&F Corp., 215/289-8300.
Jagenberg, Inc., 860/741-2501.
Tidland Corp., 360/834-2345, www.tidland.com
Montalvo Corp., 207/797-8710, www.montalvo.com
Dusenbery Co., Inc., John, 973/366-7500, www.dusenbery.com
Allen-Bradley, 414/382-2000, www.ab.com
Fife Corp., 360/834-2345, www.fife.com
Erhardt & Leimer Inc., 803/486-3000.
SM Engineering USA, Inc., 615/794-6161.
Deacro Industries Ltd., 905/564-6566.
Senix Corp., 800/677-3649.
Reliance Electric, 216/266-6013.

Slitter upgrade is as good as it gets

Roosevelt Paper Co.'s two identical 4,000-fpm Jagenberg slitter/rewinders were upgraded by A&F to run 6,000 fpm with a 60-in. maximum rewind. Other enhancements include:

Reliance digital drives
Allen-Bradley computer-controlled Panel View monitor.
Touchscreen control and 24 different programmed recipes for PLI, torque sharing and rider roll loading.
Tidland shear-cut knives.
Rebalanced rolls.
A carbide-coated front drum to prevent web slippage.
Vent-grooved rear drum to allow air removal.
Complete rebuilt A&F backstands.
New bearings and cam followers.
Rebuilt shaftless chucks.
Before and after slitting spreader rolls.
Modern load cells.
Sheet metal guarding on the lowering cradle replaced with viewing ports.
New pneumatic cylinders.
Parts dissembled, degreased, repainted.