Expertise Needed For Roll Handling Systems

Roll handling equipment design and installation require specialised engineering and system integration expertise.

Roll handling equipment design and installation require specialised engineering and system integration expertise.

That is according to S2F Engineering, which added that if companies or material handling vendors get in over their heads, customers are often left holding the bag whilst losing expensive production time.

The company believes that roll handling is a complex science, requiring equipment designers and installers to not only understand how best to wind or unwind and transport rolls of material, but also how the material itself will behave in the process and how to integrate roll handling equipment with existing systems.

Whilst it may be tempting to design roll handling equipment in-house or have a machine shop or material handling vendor handle the project, it is often a risky idea.

Suppliers without extensive roll handling experience will often get in over their heads, eventually coming back to their customers for more money, technical support and time.

Terry Benton, general sales manager for S2F Engineering in Blissfield, Michigan (USA) said: "There is definitely an art to roll handling.

That is why many general material handling companies attempt one roll handling project and never attempt another.

They spend so much money trying to make the final system work that it just isn't worth their efforts." S2F Engineering said that it is a systems integrator and a single-source supplier of roll handling systems, material handling equipment and specialised machines.

The company has designed, engineered and implemented roll handling projects for clients ranging from start-ups to bigger companies.

According to Benton, selecting a company with past experience in roll handling equipment design, manufacture and installation is extremely important because of the number of variables involved.

The average material handling vendor - let alone machine shop - will not have adequate experience when starting a project.

Jeff Holt agreed.

Holt is a mechanical engineer at Konica Minolta Manufacturing USA and is responsible for roll handling equipment, as well as other production line material handling in the plant that produces silver-based photographic paper used by photographic laboratories to make prints.

"I've dealt with a lot of vendors, including material handling and machine shops," Holts said.

"Many of them will give you a low price to get the contract.

You find out later on that they have cut corners to save some money and you suffer from that later, possibly for a long period." Considering the high stakes involved, S2F provides some guidance to consider when undertaking roll handling projects.

Firstly, as with any other bid business, roll handling vendors may submit low prices to win a project, or may unintentionally underestimate the complexities of the processes involved.

Even ethical vendors who inadvertently underbid roll handling projects due to inexperience will run out of money.

The question is: will they run out on the job, leaving their client high and dry? Or, will they go back to the customer - who is already on the hook - and require more money to complete the job? Under-qualified suppliers do not have the experience or resources to do many of these projects Benton explained.

And he said.

"We run in to this situation all the time - we get beaten on a bid because a company selects a vendor strictly on price.

Then the vendor runs out of money and walks away from the project, so the customer has to complete the work or hire another contractor with specific technical expertise.

When it's all said and done, the customer goes over budget and may have to bear expensive production delays as well." Machine shops have their place but in roll handling applications, where manufacturers are continually evolving systems to meet customers' changing requirements, equipment fabrication and price are not the driving factors.

Customers' roll handling equipment is going to be running for years, so it is critical that companies work with a supplier that has hands-on experience and the engineering capabilities to work together in meeting those evolving application requirements.

Some companies may tend to use their own engineering staff to design roll handling equipment.

Senior management may quickly agree with that idea, hoping to save money.

Or, there may be the tendency to use existing material handling vendors or machine shops, said S2F.

"I might design some of our equipment myself and just have it built by a machine shop, and they will deliver it," explained Konica Minolta's Holt.

"But then I'm responsible for integrating it with other equipment and commissioning it.

S2F is flexible enough to work with us that way, if we just want them to provide the equipment.

But for more complex projects, such as roll handling, I want them to be responsible for everything from submitting designs to installing and integrating the system, and then starting up the equipment." Many companies having a roll handling equipment supplier with engineering capabilities is vital to success.

Companies outsource roll handling equipment from companies such as S2F because it will be involved in system development and engineering.

There is also always pressure to come up with more efficient systems, and the synergy available from S2F helps to achieve that.

S2F Engineering said that it gives special attention to speciality machine design.

They are created in Parametric 3D solids using Solidworks software, whilst the team of mechanical and electrical engineers work together to integrate the mechanical functions with the electrical components using IED (intelligent electronic device), communications and other technology.

Roll handling equipment must often interface with existing equipment, sometimes involving systems that the roll handling contractor did not install.

At Konica Minolta Manufacturing USA, new equipment had to deliver rolls to a slitter.

The slitter had to 'know' when the roll was delivered, and then deliver that roll for rewinding on to other rolls with different core sizes.

So it was vital that the two systems interfaced correctly.

With customers around the world producing film products on customised, high-speed equipment provided by Battenfeld Gloucester, effective system integration requires individualised attention, said S2F.

Mike Wainer, senior project manager at Battenfeld Gloucester Engineering, said: "These systems are typically very fast and very complicated, involving advanced automation technologies.

So we depend on a roll handling supplier being able to provide and develop, if necessary, highly efficient systems that will integrate with ours." S2F Engineering assigns a project engineer to every project, whose role is to become the primary source of communication with the customer.

That allows the team to quickly and accurately process information internally for services including mechanical and electrical design, equipment assembly and testing, documentation, installation and commissioning.

Terry Benton commented: "System integration is where we started.

We have a lot of experience in putting together the pieces of an entire plant floor and then connecting those pieces to make the entire system work automatically." And he added: "Rolls present their own unique set of problems with transportation and lifting or conveying them, whatever is needed to handle them internally or package and ship them.

These requirements are completely different than what is encountered with other types of material handling." According to Benton, the material itself can pose any number of problems, including rolling, rewinding, or transportation difficulties.

Soft material, for example, will often wind on a roll loosely and when set down, may compress and create a flat spot on the bottom.

Such rolls will not roll very easily on the production line.

Other products, such as silicon release paper, are slick and, therefore, present winding problems.

Lifting such a roll with a core gripper, for instance, could cause the core to telescope right out of the roll.

Rolls from a cast film line may appear hard and uniform like paper rolls, yet the profile of film is not as flat as paper, so there are usually irregularities in the diameter of the roll.

When rolled down a ramp, they tend to skew toward the side or become locked together.

Benton continued: "Those who have in-depth experience in roll handling evaluate all of these different factors before they propose a system.

This requires them to be experts in a number of areas, such as mill roll handling and transport, roll handling for converters, wrapping, and preparation for storage or shipment." With a variety of companies in the business of designing and fabricating custom equipment today, it is important to know that you are doing business with a roll handling specialist who has the necessary talent pool on hand.

This includes mechanical and electrical engineers, systems integrators, fabricators, maintenance experts and sales personnel.

In some instances a roll handling company may have built a strong reputation over the years, but the people who built that reputation may have moved on to other companies or retired.

The founders of S2F, Steve and Finn Dotson, said that they were careful to assemble a talent pool that understands the many facets of roll handling, yet also offer specific expertise that may be missing from most vendors, such as controls and systems integration.

Both Dotson brothers had over 20 years of roll handling design and service experience before founding a controls company that evolved in to S2F Engineering.

And Brad Steenrod, chief mechanical engineer at S2F, grew up in the roll handling business, as did Jeff Thomas who heads up electrical engineering.

One of the main lessons learned from all the experience at S2F, said the company, is that when it comes to the best roll handling, there are no pat answers.

"It's surprising how many of our customers ask us to show them a system or piece of equipment in the field that is just like the one they would like to buy," explained Brian Steenrod.

"We have to assure them that our systems are custom, and therefore it is seldom possible to show them a system that is exactly like the one they've conceptualised.

What we can show them is that we have the personnel with the experience and background required to design a system that will meet their specific needs," he added.

Beyond the design and installation of roll handling equipment, there is also the matter of start-up, said S2F.

Many smaller supliers will fight shy of that responsibility, leaving the customer to handle any problems if the system does not work properly.

A full-fledged design, engineering and installation firm with roll handling experience, however, will be willing to handle the commissioning of the equipment and any equipment they have subcontracted.

Konica Minolta's Jeff Holt commented: "I've had complex projects where there are multiple pieces of complicated equipment.

In those cases I choose to have one vendor be responsible for providing all of the equipment, rather than buying from five different vendors and then having me put it together.

I'll have the main vendor, such as S2F, buy everything and make certain that it all works together.

You pay a little bit more that way, but you are assured that an expert is responsible." In Mike Wainer's view, vendor support through all the necessary stages is essential to Battenfeld Gloucester's success as a systems provider.

He explained: "S2F will test the roll handling systems on its shopfloor, then send it to our plant where it's tested again, often involving their personnel.

On most jobs we contract with S2F engineers to participate in the mechanical and electrical installation in the field, as well as commissioning.

It's very valuable to go through these processes together.".

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