Powered Over/Under Conveyor for Assembly Line Cardwell Westinghouse is a company whose history goes back over 100 years. The original Westinghouse Air Brake Company was founded by George Westinghouse in 1869. Westinghouse developed the first automatic air brake system that was installed on a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train in 1872. The efficiency of this new system greatly improved the safety and popularity of rail transportation in North America. This tradition of improving safety and productivity is evident today in everything they do at Cardwell. Recently, John Olavarria, warranty and reliability engineer for Westinghouse, headed the productivity improvement process for the production line of their 2300 DJ self adjusting slack adjuster. The slack adjuster is an important part of the body mounted brake systems used on railroad cars. The slack adjuster helps ensure brake performance by accurately adjusting for brake shoe wear that occurs over time. At Cardwell the production of the slack adjuster from raw material to fully assembled, finished product takes place on one line. As Olavarria began to reconfigure the production line, it became obvious that major changes were required at the assembly stage. Manual conveyor system was inefficient and unsafe The existing conveyor system used for assembly of the slack adjuster was a manual free trolley conveyor. The existing carriers on the conveyor line were big, bulky, heavy and becoming damaged from the manual lifting of parts onto the carriers. Old Style Carrier Here’s how the old conveyor system worked: The operator would manually lift the parts into the holding basket on the carrier. The operator would then push the loaded carrier from workstation to workstation...
Conveyor Handles Long Parts Through Specialized Paint Process GemThane is a Canadian based manufacturer of pre-finished, low maintenance wood siding. GemThane’s revolutionary polymer coating process has made this company a leader in producing wood siding, wood decking, and dock products that stand above their competitors in terms of durability and overall performance. In 2006, the company began producing wood siding and soon after recognized the need for similar low-maintenance products for decks and docks. GemThane’s parent company Madison Chemical Industries Inc. took on the challenge of developing a process for producing pre-finished wood that could withstand the harsh exposure of deck and dock applications. Several years of development and testing led to the very successful launch of their Dex N’ Dox product line in 2009. The Challenge When GemThane contacted Pacline they were looking to replace their existing conveyor system with a more robust system which could more efficiently handle the transportation of 16 foot long wood siding and deck boards through the paint and curing processes. The new conveyor system would be required to: Carry 16 foot wood boards and tilt them 30 degrees to either side for painting Manage the long boards around the curves in the system and through two paint booths and ovens. Include a touch screen control system The Solution The conveyor solution for GemThane was the PAC-MAX™ heavy duty enclosed track conveyor. This conveyor has the capability of handling heavy load requirements. In addition, the enclosed track feature was important to help keep the system clean through the wet spray paint process and minimize overall maintenance costs. Selecting the conveyor was the easy...
Overhead Conveyor Used For Astrophotography PACLINE is no stranger to unique conveyor applications however some stand out more than others. Take for example the use of our PAC-MAX™ heavy duty conveyor in the Astronomy field! It all started two years ago when Ron Phillips, project engineer at PACLINE received an ‘out of this world’ inquiry from Dan Campion, an amateur astronomer in San Diego, California. Campion had acquired his first space observatory in September 2011. In November of that same year the original roof of the observatory, which was a typical dome shape, suffered severe wind damage and blew away – a problem that had occurred numerous times before. Thus he began his search for an engineered roofing solution that could keep his telescopes safe from the winds that could gust up to 100 mph. Dan Campion’s observatory is a small wooden framed building, custom designed to hold the giant telescope and it sits at a 6,000 ft. elevation overlooking Portal, Arizona. This area of the United States is known to have the darkest, clearest skies in North America making it a perfect location for astrophotography, which is Dan Campion’s specialty. Astrophotography is the recording of images using long exposure times to capture images in space such as galaxies, stars and nebulae. The high tech cameras used for astrophotography are mounted on top of the telescopes, therefore one can imagine why protection from weather and outside elements is essential as the equipment is extremely costly to replace and repair. The above is a picture captured by Dan Campion. It showcases the Triangulum Galaxy, a spiral galaxy which is around 3 million light years from Earth. Campion decided that he...
Inverted Conveyor for High Quality Paint Finishing Plasan Carbon Composites had a problem. Located in small-town Bennington, Vermont, Plasan designs and producs OEM (original equipment manufacturer) body parts for vehicles. The firm is well known for its use of carbon fibre as a building material. Plasan (originally called Vermont Composites Inc) was sending off a carbon-fibre fender for a General Motors Z06 Corvette to an outside custom coater to be primed. The custom coater was not doing a very good job, however. The vendor was inefficient, operating in decidedly low-tech fashion: “They were literally pushing these parts around on carts on the floor,” recalls Bob Davis, corporate paint engineer at PlasanUSA. “We found we were having quality issues with these outside painters,” Davis continues. “There were also issues of timing and delivery. So, we decided to build a paint system in-house. This would give us more direct control over quality, timing, schedules and everything else.” The paint system had to include an automated conveyor—a piece of equipment the custom coater lacked. “In order to maintain process control, in terms of time in the washer and times in the oven, it’s better to have a moving conveyor that you can clock and know exactly how much time [a piece has been in a particular area] as opposed to pushing something into an oven on a cart and starting a stop-watch,” states Davis. “It’s a much more consistent process to use a conveyor system.” There was another reason for wanting a conveyor: “As part of the standard for making their parts, GM prefers that parts are not touched by workers...
Inexpensive Overhead Conveyor for Small Wood Shop Small shop owners don’t realize the tremendous payback they can enjoy by adding a paint line conveyor to their operation. I recently attended the AWFS show in Las Vegas, where I met over 200 wood industry professionals, many of whom were the owners of small shops. Many visitors seemed to approach me with caution, saying, “I’m only a small shop, I don’t have the type of cash needed for automating.” This intrigued me. Many small shop owners were clearly unaware of the cost of our monorail conveyor systems and were quick to jump to the conclusion that any conveyor equipment was prohibitively expensive. I changed my approach on the second day of the show, immediately discussing with visitors the cost of a 100 foot and 200 foot system. That changed everything. They stayed longer and they came back later in the show for a second look. PACLINE has worked with several small wood shops. To show you how automation might benefit your operation I would like to share with you the recent experience of one of our customers – Contract Supply Inc. Contract Supply (CS) manufactures chairs and tables primarily for the restaurant and hotel industry. They also handle large volume refurbishing and refinishing of chairs and tables. This company was at a stage where they needed to take on larger orders with inherently lower margins. Because of the low margins, CS needed to be highly efficient with production costs, and with the larger size orders they could not afford any rework. One problem, and he would be ‘in the red’. CS normally...
