Machine Building

An automated system runs so efficiently you forget it's there

Steam is an important component of meat processing. Djurdjevic, a meat production company, wanted to automate the boiler they use to produce steam; they needed this system to be efficient and safe. Ideally, the system should operate effortlessly, without requiring human intervention. Using Unitronics PLC+HMI this goal became a reality.

6th July 2016

Improving asset availability to reduce coal handling costs

Coal is an important global resource and likely to remain so for many years to come. But now, more than ever, the pressure is on to reduce transportation costs by improving the efficiency of coal handling operations.

6th July 2016

NUM collaborates to develop intelligent CNC gear hobbing machine

NUM (NUM Taiwan Ltd) and Taiwan's Feng Chia University have jointly developed an intelligent CNC gear hobbing machine with an advanced electronic gearbox that completely eliminates the time overheads of changing mechanical gears on traditional machine tools.

6th July 2016

Unidrive M variable speed drives eliminate reliability issues

A coil processing equipment manufacturer has introduced variable speed drives from Control Techniques, an Emerson business. Athader, based near San Sebastian in northern Spain, manufactures coil processing lines, mainly slitting lines and levelling and cut-to-length lines for steel, stainless steel and aluminium material. Equipment manufactured by the company, which is part of the Bradbury Group, is destined for customers that include steel coil processors, rolling mills and profile and tube manufacturers, 80 per cent of which are located outside of Spain.

6th July 2016

Unidrive AC drive: power and reliability in a smaller package

It is a continuous challenge for manufacturing companies to deliver greater efficiencies in production at ever-lower costs. Businesses strive to work leaner and push their manufacturing processes harder, meaning reliability, efficiency and performance are constantly under strain. Freudenberg Performance Materials understands these issues. The business, a global leader providing innovative solutions for a large number of markets and applications such as for the building sector, car interior, hygiene, medical as well as industrial technical textile applications and shoe components needed to replace an AC drive within their nonwoven production facility in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

5th July 2016

Maintenance-free tower lighting in wind turbine generators

In order to ensure the safety of employees in wind turbine generators, the towers must be illuminated safely. To this end, Phoenix Contact offers a tower lighting system using maintenance-free LED lights.

4th July 2016

Kistler's Correvit SFII sensor measures world record

The Academic Motorsports Club Zurich (AMZ) was founded by students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich back in 2006. Once again this year, the club successfully staged its Formula Student Project and broke the official Guinness world record for the fastest acceleration from 0 to 100km/h by an electric vehicle. The Kistler sensor Type Correvit SFII measured the point when the magical 100km/h mark was reached.

4th July 2016

ESAB plasma cutting system used in urgent bridge repair project

A state-of-the-art ESAB Suprarex SXE 5000 plasma cutting system played a crucial role in enabling Watson-Towers Ltd to meet an urgent requirement for structural steel repair plates for the emergency repair of the Forth Road Bridge, which had to be closed with no notice when cracks were discovered in the structure. Within 24 hours of the initial enquiry, the steel companies had cut and delivered plates to the fabricator ready for repairing the bridge. Two key factors enabled the companies to meet this tight deadline: Watson-Towers' stocks of the correct grade of steel, and the ESAB machine's capability to profile and bevel the plates in one go, as manually bevelling the plates would have taken too long.

1st July 2016

Heavy Duty Linear Guides used on automotive production line

When a textile machinery engineering company in Germany were contracted to supply an automated non-woven fabric production machine for an automotive supplier, they were clear they wanted a solution with the key mechanical components sourced from one supplier.

1st July 2016

Electrical installation enables biomass co-generation

WEG has designed and installed an electrical system for biomass energy generation at a major sugarcane processing mill in Mexico. As the first co-generation project in the country, the scheme reuses sugarcane bagasse as a renewable energy resource to generate nearly 155GWh of electricity per year, which would be enough to supply around 28,000 homes with power for 12 months.

30th June 2016