Rieter

Potential for automation

Index

Much of the work required on the roving frame is costly, time-consuming, physically demanding and ergonomically unfavorable. Automation is therefore most desirable in order to improve working conditions, to reduce errors, to prevent damage to the roving packages and to increase productivity.
The layout of a roving frame (with its double row of bobbins arranged one behind the other, flyers directly in the forefront, and the expansive creel), is far from ideal for automation. Nevertheless, considerable advances have recently been made. The following picture emerges.

  • Can changing. Full automation would be too complex and would bring only minor benefits because the change occurs too infrequently. However, can transport might be at least partly automated.
  • Piecing sliver breaks. This occurs even less frequently and is therefore hardly worth consideration.
  • Piecing roving breaks. This also occurs infrequently and could only be automated with considerable effort that would make it highly uneconomic.
  • Bobbin doffing. This is the most useful opportunity for automation and is long overdue since the doff is a costly, frequent and ergonomically unsatisfactory operation that has a significant influence on efficiency. Fortunately, bobbin doffing is state-of-the-art nowadays.
  • Bobbin transport. This is also an obvious candidate for automation, since about 60% of wage costs in a spinning mill using ring spinning machines can be attributed to the cost of transport. Such systems are now available with varying degrees of automation.
  • Cleaning. Cleaning has already been automated to a great extent by means of cleaning aprons, clearer rollers and suction systems at the drafting arrangement, and also by the traveling blowers that keep the machine clean.
  • Machine monitoring. Stop devices are now standard equipment on roving frames. In this area, automation has already been satisfactorily achieved and the burden on personnel has effectively been removed.
  • Production monitoring. Short-staple spinning mills operate with small profit margins that are generated at a number of individual positions. Many parameters exert an influence. Raw material is the main one, but utilization of personnel and of the installation are also important. An optimum is attained if the machines produce day and night with a minimum of interruptions. One possibility for optimizing efficiency and keeping it under control is a production monitoring system, such as the Zellweger Uster MILLDATA-SLIVERDATA system, in which interruptions in operation of all machines in the preparatory installation are recorded, evaluated and stored. Other companies offer similar systems (for instance, SPIDERweb by Rieter).
  • Quality monitoring. In contradistinction to the drawframe, where an almost complete quality check can be carried out on the machine itself, total quality control on the roving frame would be too expensive, since too many production positions would have to be checked. Checking roving quality remains the province of the laboratory.
  • Maintenance and servicing. Much, but not all, has already been achieved in this area by way of central lubrication, low-maintenance design and so on.

Several of the points listed have already been dealt with elsewhere in the text, so that here only  package doffing and transport will be briefly discussed in more detail.