Page 30 - MetalForming June 2013

Press Controls
ARaymond manufacturing manager Justin McCullah shows off the company’s new “die-protection toolbox” that houses
an array of proximity, ring and laser sen- sors. Each sensor is prescribed for certain duties on the plant’s high-speed presses,
to protect its aging set of dies that lack the room to house sensors onboard.
objectives (MBOs) for every employee, hold them accountable and reward them for success,” says McCullah. “In 2011 we asked our employees to reach the efficiency-improvement goals we established on 80 percent of our work orders. We upped that to 85 percent last year and 90 percent this year.” Employ- ees were rewarded for their efforts with a performance bonus in 2012.
Of course when it comes to press run rates, just cranking up press speed does not easily nor automatically trans- late into increased throughput. Most notably, the accompanying adjust- ments made to the coil-feed line rep- resent a critical success factor. And here’s where another unique capabili-
ty of the Wintriss SmartPac 2 comes into play—it’s called Feed Advisor.
With SmartPAC 2’s Servo Feed Inter- face (SFI) option, available for most brands of servo feeds (including the Rapid-Air feeds that ARaymond has added to its upgraded press lines), users can program, store and auto- matically download feed parameters for each tool. With a programmed feed
length, feed arc and press speed, the SmartPac determines whether or not the feeder can operate in the time avail- able. It then calculates the minimum feeder acceleration rate required.
“Feed Advisor helps our press tech- nicians and setup people by analyzing when the feed occurs relative to die closure,” says McCullah. “Without this feature, we would spend countless
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28 MetalForming/June 2013
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