Case study · 2007–2016
Where our panel shop began: a 32-axis motion retrofit
Door manufacturing (machine retrofit). Scope: engineering and design, panel build, machine retrofit, on-site installation and start-up, long-term support.
The challenge
A door manufacturer depended on an aging automated door-processing line. Doors moved through the machine on belts and fences. It measured them, cut openings for lights (windows), tilted units and pressed them, with loading and unloading at each end. The line needed new controls from end to end: 32 coordinated motion axes working together, with safety interlocks throughout.
What we did
- Took on the whole job: engineering, design, panel build, retrofit and on-site installation. It was the largest project in our company's history at that time.
- Built a new engineering and panel shop for it. We set up a shop on Prairie Road in Waukesha for the build, and staffed the project partly from a new LaCrosse/Holmen office.
- Designed and built the control system around multi-axis servo motion:
- servo drive and supply modules, servo motors with planetary gearboxes, and encoder feedback;
- distributed I/O over CANopen and DeviceNet;
- pneumatic valve manifolds, proximity and photoelectric sensors;
- safety relays and e-stop circuits;
- ABB contactors, interface relays, limit switches and wire duct, and Hammond enclosure thermostats.
- Installed and started it up on site. Up to six of our people were at the plant at a time, several times over the retrofit, with start-up running on site through 2008.
- Tuned it to the plant's real product. Over the following year our engineers:
- added and debugged new door programs and unit-tilt programs;
- reworked fence and belt sequences;
- re-tuned servo axes;
- debugged the loader, unloader and measuring-station interfaces;
- reconfigured over-travel switches and fence programs so the line could take doors as narrow as 18", down from 21" on the original machine.
- Stayed with it. Troubleshooting visits, machine backups, servo repairs and spare parts continued for years after start-up.
The result
The retrofit gave the plant a modernized 32-axis line. It also gave us an engineering group and a panel shop. When we moved into our Brookfield facility in 2008, the Waukesha shop and the LaCrosse/Holmen office came under one roof, and that shop grew into the UL 508A panel shop we run today.
What it shows: where our engineering and panel-shop capability comes from: a complex, multi-axis motion retrofit taken from design through installation and supported for years afterward.