Once the total process control program is underway, it is time for the second requirement for optimized productivity and this is known as total machine control .

The 24 Bobbin Section Of A Star Type Or Radial Rigid Strander.

From the maintenance perspective, it means that regardless of the age of the production machine, it is kept in optimum mechanical and electrical/ electronic condition such that emergency breakdowns are extremely rare and in many cases do not occur at all.

To achieve this, recent maintenance logs must be carefully analyzed to verify that there is adequate manpower available to institute a top-flight planned maintenance program. The program resulting from this analysis will develop plant-wide awareness of what maintenance really is and it will focus the maintenance group on those areas where return is the highest. The effectiveness of the maintenance department will be significantly improved and production downtime will be substantially reduced. Morale in the maintenance department and in the the plant at large will also improve. This is the first positive step towards an effective preventative maintenance program which in itself will further reduce production downtime.

Once the planned maintenance program and the preventative maintenance offshoot program are working well, an advanced program such as Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) can be instituted. A TPM program however is a journey more like Total Quality Management (TQM) and it requires significant management commitment and resources.

The 24 Bobbin Section Of A Tangential Type Rigid Strander.

Regardless of the kind of process or the type of tooling being used, there are three basic rules that are crucial if high productivity is to be achieved.

1.  The tooling must be in good shape.

2.  It must be readily available.

3.  Selection repeatability is everything.

The Cross-Section Of A Thermoplastic Crosshead In A Vacuum Tubing Configuration. The Drawing Shows:

(A) The Threaded Tip, (B) The Tip Mandrel, (C) The Mandrel Sleeve, (D) The Crosshead Sleeve/Retainer,
(E) The Helicoid, (F) The Crosshead Body, (G) The Die, and (H) The Die Holder/Retainer.
(The plastic flow is shown in yellow.)

A View of the Tip and Die.
(The tip thickness has been exaggerated to show the drawdown cone.)

Because it is counterproductive to add tool and die personnel, other effective strategies must be developed.

There are a number of pieces of very effective support equipment which, if properly installed and utilized, can significantly increase productivity by reducing set-up time, scrap and, negative material variances. A technical evaluation of your plant is first necessary however to ascertain if indeed financially justifiable opportunities exist.

We are a small engineering services company and our principal holds a four year degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Manitoba. He is professionally registered in the Province of Ontario and for more than 30 years he has practiced plant and process engineering for multinational wire and cable companies. Moreover, his assigned projects have taken him all over the world. His expertise is in the manufacture of telephone cable, optical fiber cable, data cable, control cable, instrument cable, building wire, and low, medium, high and, extra-high voltage power cable (paper and plastic). He is the only engineer in the Western Hemisphere to have constructed a complete extra-high voltage MDCV (Mitsubishi Dainichi Continuous Vulcanizing) extrusion line, a horizontal continuous vulcanization machine capable of manufacturing 500 KV polyethylene insulated power cable. This project also included such service equipment as advanced plastics handling clean rooms and plastics holding and conveying systems and the control and destruction of crosslinking byproducts. He holds patents in both the United States and Canada and is a lifetime member of the Wire Association International, Inc.

We at Stewart-Hay Associates would be pleased to assist you in setting up or rebuilding your planned maintenance, preventative maintenance and total productive maintenance (TPM) programs. Similarly we look forward to working with you on tooling management issues and on the acquisition of peripheral equipment to increase individual productivity within the plant. Please contact us to discuss your requirements in detail. All inquiries and transactions will be kept 100% confidential.

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A member of the Wire Association International, Inc. since 1972.
A lifetime member since 2004.