Focus L.E.G.O.: Pluton for sewn books

25/05/2017

Focus L.E.G.O.: Pluton for sewn books | Solema srl

An end-of-line machine that it's not an end-of-flow one

A palletizer is commonly known only as the last part of automation to prepare finished products on pallets.

The specific automatisms of a machine such as Pluton show all their effectiveness by manipulating delicate and critical semi-finished items such as sewn book blocks, in a transitory phase of the manufacturing process between sewing and casing/binding.

The subject of this focus is the use of Pluton at L.E.G.O. factiories in Vicenza and Lavis, where some of our palletizers work by collecting semi-finished products sewn by a line of three sewing machines.

A soft- or hardcover book at the end of the line tends to preserve its shape thanks to binding/gluing and to the cover, but the same thing can not be said of an intermediate product such as sewn blocks, which on the contrary show some troubles: a sewn block is not sufficiently rigid and does not yet have a regular profile that allows a stable stacking; the first and the last pages are not protected by the cover and they may ripple themselves or become dirty; accidental slipping and twisting may inadvertently compromise the integrity of the product.

Manual palletizing involves a significant risk of having one of these disadvantages.

Relying on automatic manipulation with Pluton palletizer turns out to be the best way to preserve product quality during the palletization.

In the Solema palletizer, aligning and jogging movements have been designed to offer a constantly controlled stress of the products, made by modular and progressive drives, and the finished pallets obtained have an high degree of stability thanks to the dedicated software that can alternate the palletizing patterns for every layer, as well as being able to insert slip sheets inbetween.

With about 600 employees, L.E.G.O. is one of the world's most important companies among binderies. An industrial competence that allows management to see distinctly and immediately the benefits of using an automated system like Pluton in an unusual position in workflow: the functional one - the guarantee of a gentle and careful palletization of the product; the ergonomic one - up to 12,000 kg less to manipulate in one working shift makes the task of the operators much less tough; the productive one - an automatic system keeps the working speed constant along the desired time range; the merely economical one - a line of three sewers requires two operators instead of three.

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