This paper presents a novel, patent-pending, Autonomous Trimming & Sampling Station which is introduced on the market as the TRIMBOT.
Conventional trimming and sampling stations are typically located within the confines of the coil handling system. It is predominantly a manual activity where at least one operator identifies, separates, cuts and removes anything ranging from a short piece of a ring to several rings from the exposed end of a wire rod coil. This manual activity offers a very poor work-environment, and it is a frequent source of different types of injury for operators. There is also a negative impact on both yield and product quality as individual operators may interpret and implement trimming instructions different from their coworkers. The manual activity mentioned above is expensive to operate, without adding any particular value to the finished product. When summarizing the total cost of the labor, and the cost associated with a reduction in yield, together with increased scrap and the negative impact on quality, the total cost is significant.
The system presented in this paper introduces a new process, designed to circumvent many challenges associated with conventional coil trimming by transforming the manual workstation into a completely Autonomous Trimming & Sampling Station. Introducing a novel process and bringing it to the market has its challenges; any new solution must not only outperform the conventional alternative, but it needs to be justifiable for both total cost and running costs. To satisfy these expectations the system presented is from the very beginning designed giving the right importance to the final total cost.
Albeit the primary purpose of the new system is to delete human operations in the trimming procedures, the new process also brings completely new abilities to the trimming station such, for instance, the Dynamic Trimming. Dynamic Trimming makes possible to adjust the trimming position in real-time to minimize the quantity of material trimmed from one coil in response to changes in the rolling process.
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