CASE STUDY
Challenges
When a manufacturer of metal cord for automotive tires needed to upgrade its wire draw machines, they faced multiple challenges. Their product quality standards required that the machines maintain a specific, minimum tension measurement during the manufacturing process. They were using a bespoke solution developed for the application by a small company that was no longer in business. The solution allowed the user to dial in the tension on the wire without making any adjustments to the drive system’s parameters. The metal cord manufacturer had exhausted all levels of technical support with the manufacturer of their installed drive systems without being able to achieve the tension control performance required for their applications.
Solution
Wesco partnered with a local integrator and Siemens to create a solution to address the root issue. We quickly sized up a motor and drive and had them hand-delivered to the customer’s site for testing. We used the customer’s existing PLC paired with a Siemens drive and motor to prove our solution could meet their performance needs.
Once the metal cord manufacturer saw that the solution significantly exceeded the tension specification requirements, they decided to retrofit their production lines with a full, Siemens automation and drives solution. This integrated solution was comprised of: one TIA Portal 1516F Safety PLC; 11 racks of ET200SP Remote I/Os; two XC216 SCALANCE Switches; ten, 7-inch Comfort Panels; and one, 15-inch SINAMICS S120 Drives (10 multi-axis racks with 30 drives in total), 20, 1FK7 Servo Motors, and various other motor control products.
Result
Together with the integrator and Siemens, Wesco shaped a high-performance solution using industry-standard products to solve the customer’s critical business problems. The metal cord manufacturer upgraded four production lines in a one year and with more planned in the future. They now have a proven upgrade strategy to replace their obsolete black box solution due to the team’s expert guidance.
Summary
Customer
Metal cord manufacturer for the automotive industry.
Challenge
Current solution maintain tension of wire during manufacturing was erratic.
Solution
Integrated solution using Siemens industry-standard, automation, drives and motor control products.
Result
Wesco’s trusted partnership with the local integrator and Siemens drove the team’s successful development of an upgraded metal wire cord machine design that exceeds the customer’s performance requirements. The customer deployed the new solution on multiple wire draw lines and now has a proven, all-Siemens solution they can rollout in the future.