SiPlace Nozzle Change Issues

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Okay, I'm tired of beating my head against the wall. The wal... - Aug 28, 2012 by A Very Frazzled Man

This is a pretty common problem believe it or not. First thi... - Aug 29, 2012 by tommyttr

I have been down this road several times in the past and hav... - Aug 29, 2012 by knightmck

Those are some pretty good ideas. I like the idea of having... - Aug 31, 2012 by A Very Frazzled Man

I remember to have the same issue with a S20 + F4 line, afte... - Sep 05, 2012 by Jorge_Quijano

is not as simple as stating manufacturing efficiency is what... - Sep 05, 2012 by belinda1

A Very Frazzled Man

#67139

SiPlace Nozzle Change Issues | 28 August, 2012

Okay, I'm tired of beating my head against the wall. The wall is becoming dingy, and it's leaving a flat spot on my bald head....

Has anyone had problems trying to train operators and/or Technicians on the proper way to recover from a Nozzle Change Error on a SiPlace (Siemens) machine? We have two HS50's and two F5's and we are constantly fighting this issue. We're paying thousands of dollars in nozzles and nozzle holders, (Garages), because they're becoming damaged due to operators manually pulling nozzles out and placing them on the C&P heads. The machine then doesn't know it's current state, and then attempts to put nozzles away on top of other nozzles. We change over 12-15 times a day, and these issues are causing our changeover times to go through the roof. Has anybody else fought this fight? I'm ready to start chopping hands off, but I think the safety committee may come down pretty hard on me if I do. Please and thanks!!!

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tommyttr

#67140

SiPlace Nozzle Change Issues | 29 August, 2012

This is a pretty common problem believe it or not. First thing is to bolt down the garages, second is recalibrate them nozzle changer to ensure that head has the right alignment with the changer. If that doesn't work, you can do what I did and just unconfigure the nozzle changer on the machine. The machine will message the operator to change nozzles when needed and you will stop spending thousands on garages and nozzles.

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knightmck

#67143

SiPlace Nozzle Change Issues | 29 August, 2012

I have been down this road several times in the past and have also found it very frustrating. This time I got our 6 sigma/lean guys involved and their solution was to implement a check sheet that the operators had to fill in at the start of their shift. So at the start of the shift the operators return all nozzles to the garages (any that fail to return is noted, they should then either be calibrated or physically checked), they then compare that the qty and type of nozzle in the garages match their sheet (if it doesn't then they need to add/remove nozzles so it matches). Now I was sceptical at first, as to were the operators, but after a period of a few weeks when they realised that it was much easier to do it at the start of the shift rather than when they did a product change over and found a problem, they have now bought into it and so far so good. During this first few weeks we would go down in the morning and check the sheets and help them resolve any issues (or give a bit more training) and now they police it themselves and so far so good! The first few weeks were a pain, and there was a bit of moaning about more paper work and the 5 or 10 minutes extra it took to do the check in the mornings, but once they got that out of their system it seems to work!

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A Very Frazzled Man

#67182

SiPlace Nozzle Change Issues | 31 August, 2012

Those are some pretty good ideas. I like the idea of having them self-police the issue, (obviously once they have a better understanding of whats causing the problem). It also helps them correct any issues at the start of their shift that may have been caused by on operator on a previous shift.

Thanks for your help!

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Jorge_Quijano

#67206

SiPlace Nozzle Change Issues | 5 September, 2012

I remember to have the same issue with a S20 + F4 line, after several tries, we fixed all head nozzles from machines 1 thru 4 with the most commom configuration, and let the F4 machine with the automatic nozzle changer configured with common nozzles and marked with nozzle type, our throughput was slightly decreased, but at the end with the time we saved, it was worth. Less nozzle changes = less headaches

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belinda1

#67207

manufacturing | 5 September, 2012

is not as simple as stating manufacturing efficiency is what makes manufacturing important. The pressure is built up on production staff. Procurement costs, manufacturing process costs and do not forget finance department's innovative skills in cost allocation, and also fancy salary bills of top management in the western countries. The manufacturing process in west may involve highly automated robotic lines, while China uses simple conveyourised manual assembly(but it is flexible and makes it easy to change over to another model or even run multiple models at the same time), longer working hours(meaning lower labor costs) etc etc- all matter. Do not go gunning to prodcution head only. Manytimes in India people have found sale price of Chinese prodcut is below raw material costs in India. I do not beleive that raw material costs (cost of natural resources. Other manufacturing costs are a result of value addition processing) can vary so much any in teh world. So one needs to find out reasons for large variations in input costs- it may be related to local Government policies etc. http://www.hi-techplastics.com/engineering/tooling-design

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