Turn-key production automation: development, supply and commissioning of a specialty machine
Boxmeer, April 2018 – A number of years ago SSEB built a specialty machine for a customer, a machine manufacturer for the industrial textile industry. The machine helped automate the glueing process of the two parts of a squeegee. A few months ago, the same customer had a new assignment for SSEB: to develop a specialty machine to automate the roughening of a rubber strip (part of the squeegee).
The customer is listed in the MT100, with the following description: “The chance is considerable that products you use daily are printed with machines made by this machine manufacturer. The company builds printing machines and consumables for the graphics and textile industries.” The customer has an expansive product portfolio, including a broad spectrum of rotary silk-screen printing systems and digital printing systems.
A few years ago, the customer asked SSEB to develop and build a specialty machine to automate the glueing process of a squeegee. A squeegee consists of a stainless-steel strip and a strip made of PU material (rubber strip) that are glued together.
The stainless-steel strip and the rubber strip were previously manually glued together. This not only took time but also cause considerable quality problems. SSEB developed and build a specialty machine that automatically glues together these two parts.
Production automation: roughening PU strip
Several months ago the customer once again approached SSEB to develop and build another specialty machine, once again for a squeegee. It concerned another squeegee, and another part of the process that required automation.
In this case the customer asked that a specialty machine be developed to automate roughening the strip of PU material (rubber strip). The rubber strip needs to be roughened before it can be glued to the stainless-steel strip, to improve the adhesion. This was always done manually. Main reason to automate this step in the process was to improve the quality. In addition, it would of course also save time.
Thus, the customer’s asked that SSEB develop a specialty machine to automate this process step. And it was important that the new machine was capable of roughening varying strip lengths.
Specialty machine: from idea up to and including construction
Before we start developing and building a machine, we always conduct preliminary research and possibly build a prototype. This saves time and money later on in the process, as it eliminates technical problems or impossibilities surfacing over time. During the preliminary research stage, we regularly confer with the customer.
As part of this project, SSEB took care of the entire trajectory: from development and engineering of the specialty machine up to and including construction and commissioning, including programming the software end assembling the control box. This is how we unburden the customer from the beginning to the end.
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