HIGHSPEED AUTOMATION AT ETERNIT
Since the 1900s fibre cement panels are considered to be the embodiment of modernity. Especially over the past 10 years the fibre cement panel experienced a renaissance in the design of façades.
This led to new challenges in producing fibre cement panels. To protect the products from optical defects, such as scratches and marks, as solution was needed.
After a short project study by the specialists of the full-service supplier Merten it was clear that conventional measures are out of question. This led to the idea of the fully automatic foil feeding. The big challenge for this follow-up project at the TBA system was not to harm the productivity of the complete line. This meant in plain text: The adherence to the cycle time of 10 seconds for foil gripping, unrolling, cutting to size and dispensing – all, while taking into account the specific infrastructure at extremely narrow spatial conditions.
On the basis of their calculations the Merten specialists quickly recognised that only an alternating, flat-designed linear infeed system was the key to solve the problem definition. An additional challenge was the tight time-frame specified by the client. Nevertheless, together with Eternit the Merten project team accomplished the troublefree start-up within the given time.