Mobile Automation moved a Victorian steel processor's plant into a new factory and back into production — a slitting line, a cut-to-length line, a re-coiler and the factory services around them.
Machines set level, square and paint-marked
Coil-handling machinery must run level and true.
- Machines craned onto bases and squared against piano wire frames, plumb bobs and string lines
- Heights taken on dumpy level and theodolite
- Bases and rails chem-set and grouted, high spots ground out where carts run, rails polished
- Base and machine fasteners tensioned and paint-marked so movement shows
Everything proved before supply went on
Everything was tested before the first power-up.
- MCC set on plinth, bolted down, mains fitted off
- Cable tray, conduit, encoder, drive and PROFINET cabling to the machines
- Light curtains, gate switches and fencing to both lines, plus a bracket made for the entry Mettler scale
- All 48 motors on the cut-to-length line insulation-resistance and fault-loop-impedance tested
- Cabinets checked for polarity and phase to earth, supply and rotation proved
- Lighting, compressed air, maintenance-shed power, data, comms and production cameras installed
Faults cleared and safety proved at commissioning
Commissioning ran alongside the line's commissioning engineer.
- Load cells calibrated, automatic coil centring set up, EMG CAN display error cleared
- Nail-position sensor traced to a weak magnet and remagnetised
- Re-coiler brake proved clear of the pneumatics with an adjustable 0-10 V supply
- Fault followed through the potentiometer, PLC input and output card to the program
- Program was limiting voltage for a redundant ultrasonic sensor; disconnecting it restored the brake
- Sick microScan3 scanner remapped to guarding in its new position
- Siemens documentation worked through to establish whether dual contactor feedback into a standard input module met PLd
Staying on the plant after start-up
The same crew stayed on.
- Intermittent light-curtain dropouts traced to a terminal bridge in the MCC
- Bridge replaced and verified across runs, curtains realigned, key-locked mandrel-expand override added
- Breakdown attendance, sensor adjustment, cassette-carriage teething on the new line
- HMI text clarified on the shear and slitting lines, with soft buttons for EMG mode, photocell, leveller bridle, side-guide and pallet-feeder
- Slitting-head turret cable chain repaired where cables and hoses were chafing
- EMG strip-monitoring offsets corrected, proximity sensors adjusted, stacking-conveyor logic improved
- High-bay lighting faults replaced at 11.5 m roof height
- Cameras at the separator bars and scrap baller, cabled into the existing NVR
The results
- Slitting line, cut-to-length line and re-coiler back in production
- Light-curtain dropouts cured at source, not masked by realignment
- One crew from disconnection through to production support