Upgrade of Machine Controls Nets a Rapid Return on Investment
In 2004, AMS Controls, a maker of advanced machine controls for the metal roll forming and metal folding industries partnered with Hill Engineering and Aluminum Screen Manufacturing to create a custom solution for a more efficient production process. The project went very well: Aluminum Screen achieved a rapid three month return on investment.
Aluminum Screen Manufacturing (www.asmfg.com) approached AMS for a controller solution for a roll forming machine producing a variety of screen frames. A two zone production design was in use; a primary roll form operation was performed to produce frames; then, a secondary operation requiring manual part movement and setup was performed to punch accessory holes for the placement of rollers, door handles and adjustment screws. These manual punching operations were very time consuming and required a number of employees to complete the operations.
The solution was to add a new in line punching system provided by Hill Engineering that would help reduce the labor required to produce the frames. Aluminum Screen wanted to add the punching press in-line so that all the holes could be automatically added prior to the roll forming process. This would require a complex die with multiple gags and therefore needed a controller sophisticated enough to manage the advanced punch programming.
Hill, Aluminum Screen, and AMS collaborated to find a solution focused on meeting Aluminum’s need for efficiency with the new punching press from Hill. AMS’ controller technology was the key to make everything work together to achieve desired results of efficiency, labor savings, accuracy, and scrap reduction. An AMS XL200 series controller system was installed along with a new servo system and die accelerator to manage the pre-punching cutoff operations in a closed loop mode.
The XL200 series controller was also connected to AMS’ Eclipse production management software for direct downloading of orders and the ability to store punch patterns. Eclipse enables a scheduler to control production runs, coil inventory, and track both good and scrap material. Orders now flow seamlessly from sales and order entry through to the production line. No more manual setup is needed at the production line resulting in a significant increase in accuracy and decrease in employee time needed.
Technicians from AMS were deployed to ASM and were able to turn around the refurbishment within a week causing minimal interruption to valuable production time. Production now flows more easily while maintaining tight accuracies.
Four years later, Aluminum Screen remains a very satisfied AMS client and continues to recognize the value from their collaboration with AMS. Keith Yandell from Aluminum Screen says the support from AMS, “has always been the best I have ever seen.” A very quick return on investment was realized says Mr. Yandell as, “the project paid for itself within 3 months.”
A three month return on investment is an incredible testimonial. Rate of return on investment is an extremely important consideration when choosing to partner with AMS Controls. Mr. Yandell says the benefit to his company was enormous; about 20 workers were able to be relocated to other areas of production due to the improvements.
“All this happened at a time when help was hard to find and we were able to move them to other departments. We have had this system going on 4 years now and it works with very close tolerances… your controls are in all of our rollformers and we have had good success with all of them.”
AMS has many years of experience combining closed loop controllers and servo systems to control roll feed and die accelerator applications. If you have an application that requires tight tolerances, or if you are looking for ways to improve the efficiency of your operations, contact AMS for an integrated control system engineered for your specific application.