Formica

Formica at Newton Aycliffe use a highly sophisticated laminating process for their kitchen surface material products at the end of which is a cut to length station.

Essentially this is an encoder driven count control system which triggers the action of a reciprocating guillotine (gearmotor & cam). Formica were finding it extremely difficult to source spares for this control unit and invited Clark Components to offer a replacement control cabinet based on catalogue standard parts and operator ease of use.

In this instance the standard parts and user friendly features were difficult to engineer from standard catalogue products therefore Clarks suggested a more versatile approach using an industrial PC. The length measurement and guillotine actions were adequately catered for and additionally the front end of the control, which is the operator interface, was designed in response to specific requests of the machine operators themselves. They were delighted with the result.