Page 18 - MetalForming July 2015

Press Controls
...allow Ariens to modify the look and feel of its user-interface screens and optimize communication between press-line equipment, including a new servo feeder. And, calibration settings for parameters such as shut height now reside in a supervised limited-access area.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
Before its rebuild, this 150-ton Minster auto- matic press had run at a mere 20 strokes/min.
on some jobs. Newly rebuilt and outfitted with a new control, the press now runs no slower than 45 strokes/min., and as quickly as 85 strokes/min. on parts that had been running at 30 to 40 strokes/min.
While many, myself included, had enough of the white stuff last winter, companies like Ariens that manufacture snowblowers were saying, “Bring it on,” and joyfully singing “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”
Now that the snow has settled and the Ariens manufacturing plant in Bril- lion, WI, has adjusted some of its focus to lawnmower production, we had a chance to speak with tool and die department leader Brad Paplham about initiatives the pressroom has taken to keep up with burgeoning demand. Specifically, says Paplham:
“While snowblower sales have increased dramatically in recent years,
the company also has introduced shorter runs, a lean-manufacturing ini- tiative and a focus on quick change- overs. In the pressroom, our challenge was to accomplish all of that while avoiding setup errors that might lead to die crashes.”
Paplham and his team started their pressroom upgrade by installing, begin- ning in 2010, “speed-up” packages on the plant’s hydraulic presses—new hydraulic circuits, pump-power units etc. The Ariens pressroom houses 11 hydraulic presses from 250 to 2000 tons, and another 14 mechanical press- es—four of which are automatics that Paplham calls “the backbone of the pressroom.”
Fortifying that Backbone
It is these four automatic mechan- ical presses, which together run 25 percent of the company’s 500-plus dies, that have received Paplham’s recent attention, starting with the refurbishment of a 150-ton 1976-vin- tage Minster.
“That press,” says Paplham, “is our guinea pig. To refurbish it, including upgrading its control unit, we devel- oped a checklist of 30 ‘to-do’ items. We looked at sensor technology and ton- nage monitoring, rewiring the press, subplating of our tools, upgrading the feed line, our load and unload proce- dures, and the press control, among other areas.”
16 MetalForming/July 2015
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