| AMS
Controls Newsletter | July,
2010 | | Welcome to the latest edition of the AMS Controls
newsletter!
We have been quite busy with several large customer
projects. In this issue, you can see examples of the work we have done with
some of the top companies in the world. We have also been busy with new product
development and will be making several exciting new feature and new product
announcements in the months to come.
The economic recovery has hit our
customer base unevenly. A few companies reported that 2009 was their best year
on record and 2010 has been shaping up to be even better. Many have said that
their sales have recovered to the levels of three years ago. Unfortunately, for
a large number of manufacturers, production levels continue to be low. Recovery
seems to be largely a factor of location and industry focus.
Have you
ever been part of a productivity discussion at your business and wondered how to
improve your operation? At AMS we've listened to our clients for decades and
incorporated their suggestions in all of our amazing products. We offer our
clients an integrated solution that will improve efficiency in virtually any
manufacturing environment involving roll forming and metal folding
production.
In addition to improving the operation of machinery,
something we've learned along the way is that delays cost money. A lot of time
and money is wasted by waiting for just the right time to turn to an integrated
solution. Something else we've learned is that it will be much more difficult
to switch to an integrated manufacturing system once demand has picked up and
your management is busy just trying to get orders out the door. Making the move
now can help give everyone a chance to become accustomed to the system and
prepare for the inevitable upswing in business.
As always, if you have
an idea for a topic you would like to see us cover in a future issue of our
newsletter, please let us know.
Best regards,
Andy
Allman
President
AMS
Controls
| AMS Controls Named Official Machine Controls Supplier
by BlueScope
|
 AMS Controls is pleased to have been designated as the
official controls supplier for BlueScope Buildings North America. BlueScope
Buildings North America is the leading supplier of custom engineered metal
buildings in North America.
The arrangement will insure new and existing
production lines to be added or upgraded will have an AMS Controller added for
the most advanced machine control integration in the industry.
"BBNA has chosen to partner with
AMS Controls for future and retrofit controls throughout our business. There
were a number of factors that made this decision easy for our business. AMS has
dedicated themselves to assisting BBNA with improving our operations through
current technologies as well as providing us access to future technologies. The
use of AMS Controls also provides us with a single controller that we can use in
virtually all of our manufacturing cells, regardless of the operation or plant
location. The controller and accompanying software provides improved production
planning as well as realtime productivity reporting. Using a single controller
for all of our equipment will also result in reduced training times for our
operators and our maintenance personnel. This allows for greater cross training
of our employees.
The net result should be improved
productivity and increased profits for all of our businesses, including Butler
Manufacturing, HCI Steel Building Systems and VP Buildings. We look forward to
nurturing our relationship with AMS in order to fully realize their potential
for productivity improvements within our business," stated Lee Sparks,
Manufacturing Engineering Manager for BBNA.
Please click here to read
more about agreement between BlueScope and
AMS.
| Wheeling
Corrugating Partners with AMS
| AMS Controls was recently selected by Wheeling Corrugating to
integrate and upgrade control systems on roll forming and metal folding machines
across their ten North American facilities. The integration of these
controllers means real time uploading and downloading of information direct from
the front office and ERP system to the production machinery via AMS' advanced
Eclipse production management software.
Wheeling Corrugating, a division
of Severstal Wheeling, is headquartered in Wheeling West Virginia. Wheeling is
one of America's leading fabricators of roll formed products for residential,
agricultural, construction, highway, and bridge building markets.
John
Cramer, Engineer of Facilities and Services at Wheeling says the project is
going well; "AMS was
selected to help Wheeling eliminate errors by automating the process of order
receipt through the ERP system and directly routing the production information
to the production machines."
Cramer says ability to tie into
Wheeling's new computer system was key in their decision to partner with AMS for
seamless uploading and downloading of order and completion information; "not only will the upload /
download help minimize errors, it will also help increase production and lower
operating costs since the operators will no longer have to spend time inputting
orders manually."
| Feature Spotlight: Ethernet Available On XL200
Controllers
| | | Pathfinder
Shared Part Library
|
If you have ever needed to share
profiles between folding machines, at best you had to export that profile from
one machine and import it to another - and that's only if your machines were new
enough to support the ability to export profiles. If you didn't have two
identical makes and models of machines, you couldn't even do
that. Unfortunately, for many machines the only option was to re-program the
profile on the other machine(s) and hope it was programmed
correctly.
Now, flash forward to today.  AMS Controls
has developed the cutting edge Pathfinder folding machine
controller to allow your folding machine to do things even new machines
can't. Pathfinder puts all of your folding machines on common ground; very
high-tech common ground.
When your machines are using the Pathfinder
controller along with the Order Desk Job
Management system, all your trim profiles can reside in one shared database on
your network. This means that all your machines will access the same profiles
every time you run them. If you create a new profile on one machine, it's
automatically available to the rest of the machines. With Order Desk, you can even create all new
profiles from a desktop PC in the office and production doesn't even have to be
interrupted. Those profiles are then stored in the shared database for all
machines to access. How's that for creating a Corporate Profile
Library?
Worried about the fact that the bending sequence on your
Schechtl might be different from the sequence on your Jorns? Don't be.
Pathfinder has you covered. The sequences for each profile are stored locally
at each machine and are based on the actual geometry of that machine. The
profiles you're making are the same, but the sequence may be very different.
Can your controller do that?
Another benefit of the Pathfinder / Order
Desk combination is the ability to create jobs from the office and
have them automatically available to all your Pathfinder folding machines.
Imagine simply scanning a barcode on a stack of blanks at the folding machine
and having the job with the correct profile automatically load and the
appropriate quantity already set...it is possible, and we'll talk more about
that in the next issue. Stay
tuned!
| AMS Offers High Speed Video Capture
Service: See What You Are
Missing
| As strange as it may seem for a controls developer, we spend much of our
time trying to help customers troubleshoot mechanical problems. Often this
relates to simple things such as encoder wheel alignment. In some cases,
however, we are trying to solve problems involving high-speed presses, linear
actuators or part handling systems. Our technicians are accustomed to using
digital oscilloscopes to capture and view high speed electrical events and in
some cases we can use this tool to measure mechanical events using
accelerometers or other sensors/switches. We have recently added a high-speed
video camera to our toolbox to help with particularly challenging
problems.
So what can you do with a high speed camera on a
roll forming machine? Here are a few ideas: - Directly measure press dwell times
- Directly measure press reaction times rather than using empirical methods
(very handy!)
- Accurately adjust die boost pressure and timing
- Capture material crashes
- See material movement and machine vibration
In one situation, we
were trying to determine the source of "ringing" in the line encoder signal on a
servo flying shear application. We watched the closed loop diagnostic screen
and saw the material speed oscillate wildly immediately following the shear
hit. We suspected the vibration from the shear was affecting the encoder
mount. It was easy to mount a dial indicator on the encoder mount, but the
vibration was happening so fast, it was impossible to tell what the magnitude of
movement was. By looking at the face of the dial indicator with the high speed
video camera, we were able to see that the encoder mount was indeed vibrating in
the X axis (direction of material flow) and this caused the "ringing".
Another great feature of this type of video camera is the ability to see
backwards in time. If you need to capture a machine crash, you can put the
video camera in a mode where it will continuously record until you hit a
button. At that time, it keeps the last 5 seconds of video and starts recording
normally. As long as you can start recording within 5 seconds of a crash
occurring, you can capture the entire event in high speed.
We have also
found the camera to be quite helpful for R&D. This video shows the
improved performance provided by the 5840 "Slammer" module (click on link to
view).
The 5840 was designed to improve the performance of air and
hydraulic valves by initially hitting the coil with a high energy spike to get
the valve moving faster and more consistently. This is important for high
performance flying open loop applications. The selection of voltage (switch
setting on the 5840) is based on the size of the valve. Larger valves need
higher voltages. Smaller valves can "bounce" if too high of a voltage is
selected which leads to less-than-optimal results. Although there are empirical
methods for measuring press reaction times, it is so much easier to simply count
the frames on the video to see exactly the effects of different
voltages.
The next time you run into a tough roll forming control problem, give AMS a
call. For a reasonable daily premium, our experienced technician can come to
your location equipped with a high-speed video camera to aid with
troubleshooting. Please contact your salesperson for details and
availability.
| AMS Controls Recognized for Outstanding Business
Achievements
| AMS Controls was recently recognized by Microsoft® with the 2010 Microsoft
Dynamics Customer Excellence Award for Excellence in Evangelism.
The 2010
Customer Excellence Awards, which are presented in 18 categories, recognize and
celebrate Microsoft Dynamics customers that have achieved notable
accomplishments using Microsoft Dynamics solutions. The Excellence in
Evangelism - Microsoft Dynamics NAV award recognizes a customer who has
demonstrated a strong commitment to Microsoft technology and services. This
customer not only evangelizes Microsoft business management solutions, but is
also a source of continual feedback to Microsoft and takes the time to engage
with other customers and potential customers to share learning.
AMS
Controls was recognized for its strong commitment to Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
Working with Microsoft Dynamics certified partner Sikich LLP of Chicago, IL, AMS
Controls has been an active participant with Microsoft on several fronts. AMS
has been part of the customer reference program since 2008 and has been a strong
advocate for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 and the advent of its Role Tailored
Client, participating in numerous press and analyst interviews, the Microsoft
Dynamics Technology Adoption Program, and speaking at several customer
events.
Click here to read compete
story of AMS' recognition and continuous improvement efforts in the business of
metal forming
operations.
| AMS
Training Schedule
| |
AMS Controls offers controller and software training in a variety of
formats.
- On-site training is performed at our standard service rates. Contact AMS
Controls Technical Support for availability and to schedule a Technical Support
Specialist.
- Monthly Eclipse/XL200 training webinars are available.
- In-house training for Eclipse and XL200 controllers is performed quarterly
at AMS Controls.
| In Memoriam
| We were saddened to hear of the death of Tim Black of MBCI (NCI) last
month.
Tim was a true pleasure to work with. He was a talented
engineer - we knew that if Tim was calling us for help, it was for a really
tough problem. More importantly, Tim was a great guy and he will be
missed.
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