Money to be saved

15 October 2015



Money to be saved


Money to be saved

The advancement in print quality, waste reduction and ease of operation in printing and laminating technologies means converters are looking further downstream at the production process to save costs and improve productivity. Converters now seek the same savings gained upstream in the slitter department, whether through more automation of reel handling, or a consolidation of the number of slitter rewinders required. Barrie Homewood, sales and marketing director for Atlas Converting, discusses new developments with Converting Today.

"Due to potential inefficiencies of the slitting and rewinding process, there are considerable savings which can be made. A simple example would be the current necessity to stop the slitting process for every flag - print, lamination or splice defect - in the parent roll. With today's 100% inspection systems, it is possible to electronically map the roll directly from the printing process, review the defects and allow the inspection system to take control of the slitter. This enables automatic, fast and accurate stopping of the slitter for cross web faults, or to allow lane faults through the slitter to be edited off-line after slitting - which increases the slitter efficiency multifold."


Homewood continues: "Tension control is one of the most important functions of the slitter rewinder and critical to converters' customers. Often, many problems will not be detected until the end user is packaging a product on high-speed packaging lines. Tension variation throughout the reel of packaging material can cause significant production issues on packaging machinery. Control and adjustment of tension in the slitting and rewinding process has evolved dramatically and today's modern automated systems eliminate the guess work of adjustment. This ensures uniform web control with feedback to the differential rewind shafts."


Slitting accuracy and web guidance are vital to the slitting and rewinding process. If the guiding system is not maintaining control of the web position through the knives, then a complete job can be wasted. If the knife positions are not set accurately then the same will happen.


Homewood concludes: "When considering investment in new slitting and rewinding technology, converters need to take into consideration their own production requirements and configure the machine to meet the following demands: what size (diameter) parent rolls are required? How many flags (faults) on average does each roll contain? What are the characteristics of the material to be processed? Are materials extendable? What is the minimum and maximum thickness of materials? Are there any adhesive or cold seal applications? What are the minimum and maximum slit widths required for processing? Do additional processes need to be included in the slitting operation? For example, laser scoring, laser perforation or web treatment? How will parent rolls be transported from WIP to the slitter? Are product samples required from each reel? What label sizes are required and where should they be applied? How will the slit reels be unloaded and palletised?"


There are a lot of questions to be answered, but in addressing them, converters correctly choose the best direction to take and system to use to provide cost savings and productivity improvements.


Atlas first considered sustainability with the introduction of the first generation Titan ER610 compact duplex slitter in 2007 - ER stands for ecological rewinder. This machine incorporates design features to reduce energy consumption and shipping and logistics requirements, and operator intervention - all of which reduce the carbon footprint of the machine.


These features have since been incorporated into all Titan models, such as the latest generation Titan SR800 Duplex slitter rewinder. Currently being introduced to the market, the SR800 replaces of the highly successful SR8 series slitter, but offers greater productivity, reduced energy consumption and better ergonomics for the operator.


The SR800 Duplex slitter is available in 1,350 and 1650mm (53 and 65in) web widths and further strengthens the Titan portfolio of high performance slitting and rewinding solutions. Its modular design provides an economic and simple solution for upgrading to higher levels of automation as production demands increase. Automation options include automatic knife and laser core-positioning systems and fully automatic slit-reel unloading.


The SR800 features the latest mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electronic and computer-control technology to assure converters get consistent, high-quality rewind reels with improved levels of sustainability, productivity and easy job repeatability. It processes a wide range of flexible materials including plain, coated, printed or metalised plastic films, laminates and label materials from 20 to 200 micron and paper from 40 to 200gsm. It has a maximum production speed of 700m a minute (2,300ft a minute) with rewind diameters up to 800mm (32in) and slit widths as narrow as 20mm (0.8in).


In addition to the SR800, Atlas has confirmed the installation of a 1,650mm-wide Titan SR9-DT Dual Turret slitter rewinder at Aurika. It is one of the leading converters of labels and flexible packaging materials in the Baltic States. Aurika needed a high performance and reliable solution for its slitting and rewinding operations and made their investment at the end of 2014.


"We were particularly impressed with the high productivity that the Titan SR9-DT could deliver for our expanding business in flexible packaging materials," says Mr. Arunas Abramavicius, deputy managing director of Aurika. "The minimum machine downtime between reel sets fits our business model perfectly well and the quality of the rewind reels is excellent. It has already made an impact on our demanding production schedules."


Innovative engineering design and various automation features means the Titan SR9 Series not only lowers operator intervention and quickens set-up procedures, but also reduces costly waste materials and power consumption, delivering outstanding gains in productivity and sustainability.


With over 30 years of experience in converting systems, Mondon is another company that has been concentrating on improving the load process, tension strength and productivity of their systems.


The automated and high-speed slitting and rewinding processes produce high-quality rolls and enhance the efficiency and the productivity of a full line. Easy to use, the slitting and rewinding machines are interactive with a touch screen, at which the operator just needs to set up the width and the thickness of the product. The fully automated solutions enable loading and unloading the rolls with the lifting table. It is important to integrate the machine into the entire processing chain, right up to the fully automatic labelling, packaging or palletising.


The slitting and rewinding stations, provide high performance and high quality rewinded rolls. They can be applied to several applications on existing lines by adapting the design to the product as films, papers, laminates or nonwovens. They are available in different width from 500 to 2,500mm with optional devices. Interface parameter adjustment and mechanical design offer the end user reliable equipment that is easy to use and maintain.


Universal Converting Equipment has launched the Universal X6 slitter rewinder. The X6 slitting machine is a high-performance slitter designed for processing flexible materials. It has a smaller footprint than competing machines. A typical specification includes digital web guiding, automatic knife setting (ComputaSlit), additional tension zone through slitting, closed-loop rewind tension control, constant geometry contact rollers, automatic core alignment (ComputaCore) and a running speed of 600m a minute. The machine is simple to operate with a 22-in touch screen interface. A typical changeover - including setting 20 shear knives - can take less than two minutes, making the machine ideal for short-run work.


When converters align with their partners downstream, there are materials and resource savings to be made with no loss of production capacity or quality. By reducing stop-time and increasing tension control through these new machines, converters can handle flexible and varied substrates without waste or having to start and stop the line. The technology is available and converters can create enormous savings by using this expertise.



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