May 27, 2014

i-Web Puts the Finishing Touches on Modular Web Finishing Systems for Commercial Printing

Japs-Olson Teams Up with i-Web to Modernize Direct Mail, Commercial Printing Facility

A key customer for i-Web is a leading direct mail and commercial printing company in the Minneapolis area, Japs-Olson Co. Based in St. Louis Park, MN, Japs-Olson runs a streamlined and highly automated production facility that offers inline variable imaging, postal optimization, full service intelligent mail barcode (IMB), freight efficiencies and JO Smartmail tracking. Japs-Olson has been a force in the commercial printing industry for over 100 years and today employs over 650 people. i-Web and Japs-Olson have been close partners since the early 1980s and the two companies have continuously improved the automation and controls technology in the facility ever since.

Japs-Olson requires a high degree of technological innovation in its machinery because the company specializes in highly customized direct mail and commercial print solutions in a wide range of formats that often must be printed with same-day service. Examples include folding mailers with high quality UV coatings, highly functional “Snap Pak” envelopes, mailers with diecut cards and more. These formats not only feature pleasing designs with a premium quality finish, they are also specifically designed to improve consumer response rates while lowering printing, postage and freight costs.

i-Web web handling machinery is primarily used at Japs-Olson for inline finishing of paper products (folding, cutting, stacking). “The flexible machine design and heavy use of advanced servo drive technology cement the partnership between i-Web and Japs-Olson,” Michael Murphy, president of Japs-Olson explained. “Since i-Web machines provide problem-free modularity when making production changes, we can more easily create high quality print solutions with maximized product throughput.”

There are currently three large i-Web systems in place at Japs-Olson with a new line scheduled to be installed in June, 2014. “Japs-Olson continues to implement next generation i-Web inline finishing systems because of the progressive use of automation technology and easy configuration on the plant floor. We harness this technological momentum in order to deliver better products and more tightly integrated services for our clients,” Murphy concluded.

SAVAGE, MN—May 27, 2014—On a typical day when you check your mailbox you’re certain to find any number of direct mail pieces from stores and companies offering products, services and special offers. Granted, electronic forms of communication, whether via e-mail, apps or Websites have developed into other standard methods for these same companies to get the word out. Many studies show that physical direct mail volume continues to increase and remains a preferred method of B2C communication—both for businesses and consumers.

As such, commercial printing and mailing services is still big business. It’s no surprise that with the high volume of material involved, advanced printing and finishing solutions with flexible, high speed automation technology are must-haves. Helping meet the needs for high quality business printing equipment, i-Web is a leading global supplier of web finishing systems with high market share in the graphic arts industry. With over 30 years of experience in the field, areas of expertise at the Avon, MA-based i-Web include: system design, integration, and manufacturing of custom finishing machinery in the United States and internationally. The primary target markets for i-Web include commercial printing applications, direct mail processing, packaging and Web-based digital printing.

Untangling a web of aging servo technology
While i-Web has been quite successful implementing advanced servo drive technology in its finishing systems for much of the company’s history, some limiting factors started to become apparent in 2008. “We learned that the servo system we used at the time was limited in the number of axes we could control individually, plus we had to manage different fieldbus systems for I/O and motion,” Bob Williams, president of i-Web explained. “Since we manufacture very long production lines with many dozens of high precision motion axes, the inefficiencies ultimately became too much to bear.”

i-Web then kick-started a campaign to develop a next generation motion control platform with a heavy emphasis on the networking technology. The first and foremost requirement was to standardize on a one-bus-system that could capably cover motion, I/O and safety—with enough available bandwidth to run all functions at the same time without performance losses.

All i-Web machines are highly modular—every individual machine module must be “hot-connectable” and easily tested on i-Web’s and the end-user’s plant floor in a “plug and play” manner. Another critical requirement for the system redesign was to ensure easy remote service on i-Web machines with the added capability to configure and troubleshoot everything via an external connection. “The turning point in our search happened when i-Web received a significant order for a machine that required top end functionality that we just weren’t able to accommodate with the existing controller, fieldbus and drive system we used at the time,” recalled Williams. “We were already highly motivated, but at this point we had a concrete deadline we simply had to meet.”

i-Web only had six months’ time to go through the entire design/build/delivery process. This included requests for quotes, ordering equipment, designing and building the machine, programming/converting the code, adding new functionality, testing and startup of the upgraded machine. Considering this tight timeframe within which there was so much to accomplish, the pressure was on for i-Web to find a higher performance servo drive system and one fieldbus that could manage data from all devices on the production line.

“All systems go” with the new servo solution
During thorough research of all major servo drive vendors and motion bus technologies, i-Web encountered Beckhoff Automation. “i-Web decided to implement a full system from Beckhoff, primarily because the microsecond-level performance of EtherCAT answered all their challenging networking requirements,” recollected Gilbert Petersen, application engineer, Beckhoff Automation. “Considering speeds that enable communication with up to 100 servo axes in 100 μs, EtherCAT gave i-Web a way out of the throughput and communication problems caused by the previous bus system.” With a theoretical limit of up to 65,535 EtherCAT devices on a single network and flexible topology options, system size and architecture would no longer be problems for i-Web either.

In addition, i-Web systems require the flexibility of numerous hot-connect groups where different machine modules are regularly connected and disconnected depending on specific printing projects. Flexibility to accommodate frequent product changeovers with minimal downtime are non-negotiable demands in advanced commercial printing and mailing applications. “The EtherCAT I/O and drive systems from Beckhoff already had the technology in place to implement the real-time communication and hot-connect capabilities that i-Web needed without compromise,” Petersen added.

Supplementing the hot-connect capability, Beckhoff AX5000 EtherCAT drives also deliver peak performance for motion control and programming efficiencies. Current, speed and position control commands can all be made with reaction times that are well under half a millisecond. A wide range of high performance motors are connected to the AX5000 drives, including AM3000 series servo motors from Beckhoff.

“With EtherCAT and AX5000 servo drives, we have encountered no limitations on how many individually-controlled axes of motion we can have in our machines,” Bob Williams, President of i-Web said. “Also, because the central IPC with TwinCAT handles all the motion control, i-Web no longer has to download data sets to individual drives in the event that any need to be replaced - this is an incredible benefit for machine start-up.” Even machine operators who aren’t automation specialists can replace a drive on i-Web machines provided they have standard electrician and maintenance skills. In the past, this was far more time-consuming and cumbersome, requiring the on-site help of specialists.

As the centerpiece of the automation and motion control platform, i-Web uses C6920 or C6930 series control cabinet Industrial PCs (IPCs) for all machine lines. Running on these IPCs, the TwinCAT software system (NC PTP) centrally handles all automation and motion control requirements for i-Web machinery and manages the hot-connect capabilities of the machine modules. Various Panel PCs from Beckhoff are used for visualization, including the pole-mounted CP72xx series and cabinet-mounted CP67xx series. These often feature a custom design with the i-Web logo included on the panel front. The HMI software for the machine interface is programmed using InduSoft.

All signals ride on the same bus
During print production, the “web” is transported through the i-Web machine via multiple pull rolls that all have direct-drive motors which must run synchronously. Additional equipment such as die cutters, perforators, gluers and cutters must stay in perfect sync with the finishing process. Furthermore, there are many stepper motors used to move turn bars, compensators, digital print heads, etc. To control these elements, i-Web uses Beckhoff EL7031 and EL7041 EtherCAT Terminals; these are I/O terminals that function as ultra-compact drives for fully-integrated stepper motor control.

In the area of safety technology, EtherCAT plays an important role again. i-Web implements a wide range of e-stops, safe stop functions, guard interlocks and other safety equipment on their lines using TwinSAFE and Safety over EtherCAT technology from Beckhoff. “Through the use of TwinSAFE I/O terminals distributed along our machine lines, i-Web has been able to implement significantly more safety technology,” Williams said. “TwinSAFE also provided maximum flexibility using the existing EtherCAT network in the production line rather than having to implement a dedicated safety network.

Since the modular units can be linked into and out of the line, the safety of every module must be handled individually. If, for example, a member of the plant staff inadvertently caused an “open guard” condition, TwinSAFE technology ensures that the system stops safely in a controlled way and human safety is not jeopardized. The safe states can be triggered just for a particular module, zone or an entire line if necessary.

The standard connectivity options offered by EtherCAT and PC-based control also fulfilled i-Web’s requirement to add full remote access for troubleshooting and maintenance. “Ultimately, a PC-based automation system made it a breeze for i-Web to remotely connect from outside without having to travel to each customer’s site,” Williams explained. “Also, since we converted all machine communication to EtherCAT, essentially every component in the system can be monitored remotely since we heavily leverage standard Ethernet connectivity throughout the line.”

These machines don’t print money, but they do save money
After making the move toward EtherCAT as the all-in-one motion, I/O and safety bus, i-Web still managed to meet the six month deadline and delivered the first of its next generation finishing systems to the customer on-time, with all the expected performance upgrades and hot-connect flexibility. “Today, i-Web utilizes Beckhoff components and controls in every piece of equipment we manufacture, across the board,” Williams noted. “With a technology partnership of six years that is still going strong, over 250 i-Web systems in the field and in development are EtherCAT-enabled and equipped with a Beckhoff controls architecture.”

System maintenance for i-Web machines has been vastly improved since implementing EtherCAT. “There has been at least a 50 percent reduction in the time required for troubleshooting since moving to EtherCAT and applying remote maintenance systems,” Williams added. “We are able to communicate to any auxiliary or plant production system without complex secondary infrastructure. Also, EtherCAT inherently includes a great wealth of diagnostic functions, such as breaking point detection, and there are no bandwidth limitations.”

Through the use of centralized control and distributed I/O technologies, i-Web also achieved substantial improvements in machine footprint size. “Required electrical cabinet space has dropped by 50 percent,” Williams relayed. “By purchasing smaller cabinets we reduce costs and we can pass the savings on to customers. Alternately, we can fit more equipment into one cabinet which provides similar cost and space benefits all the way down to the plant floor. This gives i-Web an obvious visible competitive advantage when compared to other systems in the industry.”

System installation and testing have also seen considerable improvements. “In terms of the automation and controls equipment, there has been an impressive 75 percent reduction in time required for electrical installation in the field,” Williams reported. “During final install, we only have to run power, air and one standard EtherCAT cable between machine modules. Today, we can focus more time and efforts on finalizing application programming to perfectly suit each customer’s needs, which boosts the i-Web value proposition as the true experts in the industry.” With i-Web working behind the scenes, businesses can keep pace with the ever-growing needs to keep consumers informed via highly customized collateral without skipping a beat.

Source: Beckhoff Automation.

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