A new world record for industrial robot production

Via The Converting Guide, Europe announced it has a worldwide installed base of over 400,000 industrial robots, a new world record for the industry.

The recent drivers behind reaching this major milestone have been the popularity of the FANUC R-2000i Series, LR Mate series, and the CR-35iA, collaborative green robot. The FANUC R-2000i and LR Mate series are the company’s highest selling robots, while the collaborative robot has attracted new attention of customers.

Collaborative robots brought a variety of benefits to the manufacturing plant floor including improved employee welfare and increased cost savings.

At the same time, demand from manufacturers in China to transform their factories with new and emerging technologies has fueled production for industrial robots, and has played a major role in the doubling of FANUC production over the last seven years.

Head of Marketing and Sales Coordination of FANUC Europe, Konrad Grohs said: “Toda’s milestone underlines our position as the world’s leading global provider of factory automation and industrial robotics. We’re incredibly proud to have broken the world record and we believe this is testament to FANUC’s longstanding commitment to innovation, and continually pushing the boundaries of automation to increase productivity.

“Over the coming years, we will build on our rapid growth to help even more manufacturers across the world take advantage of the benefits that robotics and automation bring to their businesses. We believe that benefits of factory automation and robotisation will be better recognized also in European plants and will further increase the competitiveness of European industry.”

Original Source: Materials Handling & Logistics

Convertech President Advocates for Educational Programs, Apprenticeships for Machinists

Machinists at Convertech in Wharton, NJ.

As reported by New Jersey Business Magazine, Convertech president Larry Taitel continues to lead the charge for better educational opportunities in the area of manufacturing. Taitel, who was recently invited to join Board of Advisors for Eastwick College and the Hohokus Schools in New Jersey, delivered the keynote speech to the board. He emphasized the importance of increasing hands-on class time hours and manual machining basics for the school’s curriculum; of increasing the number of opportunities that students have in New Jersey for early manufacturing classroom experiences; and for the vital need for traditional four-year machinist apprenticeships that begin at the high school level.

Taitel’s company, which has manufactured products for the printing, labeling and packaging industry for nearly four decades, has hired a number of Eastwick graduates. “The basic skills these students acquired made all the difference in our hiring decisions,” he said. “It’s obvious how much they learned at Eastwick. But we’d like to see Eastwick offer even longer and additional programs. We believe the State has done a great disservice to young students by not even proposing machining as an option. Guidance counselors don’t even mention machining as a possibility and far too many schools have dropped their metal shops and votech programs. We see the results: It has hurt manufacturers and hurt students who, when they are not academically inclined, end up in service jobs, flipping burgers and stocking shelves, instead of acquiring skills that can serve them for life, and careers with few layoffs. It’s time to change that.”

Taitel is currently reaching out to NJ State elected officials to seek their support in bringing manufacturing curriculum back to public schools, and he urges his fellow manufacturers in New Jersey and throughout the country to do the same. “There are more than 10,000 manufacturers in the State of New Jersey alone who have been hurt by our schools dropping metal shop,” he said. “If a fraction of them would come forward and contact their elected officials, this would make a huge impact.”

Not sure who your elected officials are in New Jersey? Visit: Who is my elected official?

About Convertech: Since 1978, Convertech has designed, manufactured and delivered the industry’s highest-quality air shafts and chucks. All products are custom built at Convertech’s 40,000-sq.-ft. facility in Wharton, New Jersey where they are then quality tested before being delivered.

Plastic bottle recycling in U.S. tops 3 billion pounds

Packaging World reports that plastic bottle recycling grew 97 million pounds in 2014, increasing 3.3%, to top 3 billion pounds for the year, according to figures released jointly today by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC). The recycling rate for plastic bottles climbed 1.0% to 31.8% for the year.

The 25th annual National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report marks the 25th consecutive year that Americans have increased the pounds of plastic bottles collected for recycling since the survey began in 1990.

Trends highlighted in the report include: The 25th annual National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report marks the 25th consecutive year that Americans have increased the pounds of plastic bottles collected for recycling since the survey began in 1990.

Single-stream collection of household recyclables continues to grow, resulting in higher participation rates Use of plastic bottles in packaging applications is expanding but offset by continued lightweighting and increased use of concentrates with smaller, lighter bottles Lack of access to away-from-home recycling continues to be a barrier to increased collection During 2014, the collection of high-density polyethylene (HDPE, #2) bottles—a category that includes milk jugs and bottles for household cleaners and detergents—rose to nearly 1.1 billion pounds, a gain of over 62 million pounds from 2013.The recycling rate for HDPE bottles rose to 33.6%. The 25th annual National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report marks the 25th consecutive year that Americans have increased the pounds of plastic bottles collected for recycling since the survey began in 1990.

A higher percentage of all post-consumer plastic bottle material was processed by domestic reclaimers in 2014. Exports of all post-consumer plastic bottles rose slightly (in pounds) but fell to the lowest percentage of exports in six years (21.9%) as the amount of bottles collected increased faster than did exports, according to the report. The drop in exports may reflect the strength of the U.S. dollar and growth in domestic reclamation capacity. The 25th annual National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report marks the 25th consecutive year that Americans have increased the pounds of plastic bottles collected for recycling since the survey began in 1990.

U.S. reclamation capacity for HDPE increased to its highest level ever in 2014. Exports of HDPE bottles rose from 15.6% to 19.7% (218 million pounds) of domestically collected material, and domestic reclaimers processed approximately 951 million pounds of HDPE bottles in 2014. The 25th annual National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report marks the 25th consecutive year that Americans have increased the pounds of plastic bottles collected for recycling since the survey began in 1990.

“The message to American consumers is that plastic bottles are valuable resources even after they’ve been used,” says Steve Alexander, Executive Director of APR. “Americans generated an estimated $730 million in recycled plastic bottles in 2014. The simple act of recycling helps generate local revenue, supports recycling jobs, and enables us to continue to benefit from these useful resources.” The 25th annual National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report marks the 25th consecutive year that Americans have increased the pounds of plastic bottles collected for recycling since the survey began in 1990.

Adds Steve Russell, Vice President of Plastics for the ACC, “This report clearly illustrates 25 years of year-over-year growth in recycling plastic bottles. Plastics help reduce energy use and conserve resources—and after use, these efficient products and packages are increasingly valued as recycled materials. We’re confident that plastics recycling will continue to grow, and we will continue working to accelerate that growth.” The 25th annual National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report marks the 25th consecutive year that Americans have increased the pounds of plastic bottles collected for recycling since the survey began in 1990.

This year’s survey also found that the collection of polypropylene (PP, #5) bottles jumped 28.3% for the year to reach 79.5 million pounds, as the collection rate sprang to 44.9%. Domestic processing of post-consumer PP bottles grew to 65.3 million pounds.PP bottles deliberately recycled as PP (instead of blended with HDPE) rose from 44.2 million pounds in 2013 to 45.6 million pounds in 2014.

Why Do You Need a Dancer Controller with Tension Indication?

Courtesy of Montalvo:

Processes that require rapid acceleration and/or deceleration, or processes that may deal with out of round rolls, all benefit from utilizing a dancer due to their web storage capabilities. A well designed dancer system with a quality dancer controller is an excellent method of managing web tension.

However, no dancer system can tell you what your actual web tension is. The tension can be inferred, but without load cells providing direct web tension measurement from your material, actual tension will not be known. For some processes this is perfectly ok, as the dancer and dancer controller will provide sufficient tension control. But for processes requiring even greater process consistency, whether from run to run, or shift to shift, or if a range of materials are run on this same machine with varying tension requirements, or you simply require a greater level of precision and accuracy in your control, web tension measurement utilizing load cells is the way to go.

Some tension control suppliers will say it needs to be an either or decision, load cells or a dancer, as they do not offer a dancer controller that can capitalize on and utilize load cells or vice versa. Montalvo says you should, and can, have the best of both worlds.

A dancer controller that features inputs for load cells can provide actual tension measurement indication for operators, allowing them to ensure precise tension and process consistency while still taking advantage of all the benefits a dancer system can provide.

The Z4-UI Dancer Controller with Tension Indication also opens the door for even greater process and operator flexibility, consistency and precision through the addition of an I-P Converter to manage the dancer load, which gives your dancer system setpoint control capability.

To learn more about Dancer Control with Tension Indication, please visit the Z4-UI Product Page.