Digital position indicators meet the time challenge for packaging machine manufacturers

Machine change-over-time in production is a key issue affecting the profitable operation of packaging lines and can often present a critical bottleneck. As a supplier to this industry, the challenge for Elesa was to greatly reduce the time taken for machine switchovers on packaging lines installed on-site at their end-users.

Explained Nigel Pritchett MD at Elesa (UK): “Machine downtime for our customers and their end-users can become a major problem while they re-set each roller spindle manually. Fortunately, we have a solution readily available in the form of our unique wireless digital electronic positioning system.

“These units are a like-for-like replacement for conventional items and the connected system allows up to 36 position indicators to be re-set all together from a PC link. This saves a great deal of time compared to re-setting each one individually for different packaging configurations.”

Elesa’s RF electronic positioning indicators enable wireless communication with a PLC. This results in faster, more efficient machine set-up and associated change over processes. The wireless system enables a quicker and more reliable machine setup – achieved by the use of a linked controller, which displays the initial set-up values on each of the electronic position indicators.

An operator can simply choose the appropriate menu, then quickly re-set each spindle to its correct start position and the machine is ‘good to go’. This saves large amounts of time and greatly reduces the possibility of human error every time the line is changed or recalibrated.

This simple flexibility enables the Elesa system to be adapted as a mainstream option on all such machines and ensures it may be retrofitted to existing installations when upgrading a complete facility.