Improve the cutting process

Cutting is the center and soul of most printing companies' production processes - paper needs to be cut both before and after printing on the press. Moreover, printing companies often need to cut the printed materials into various sizes.
Cutting is a relatively labor-intensive task. According to specific needs, the paper often needs to increase the pile of paper, twist, ventilate, turn and repeat the movement. Improvements in materials handling and cutting tools are alleged to save labor and increase productivity by up to 200%.
The automation of the cutting workflow can prevent the binding equipment from malfunctioning, and at the same time reduce the possibility of operator fatigue and repeated movement and injury. Automated operations also ensure the continuity of the cutting process, which can bring many benefits and reduce a lot of waste, because usually paper accounts for 35% of the total printing cost of the job.
Rob Kuehl, director of marketing for the Polar cutting system at Heidelberg USA, commented: “When the paper moves to the paper cutter, the cost and time have already been put into operation. Any mistake on the paper cutter will cause great losses. ”
More and more printing companies are now recognizing the benefits of workflow systems. Brett Stow, director of Perfecta USA Inc. (In Indianapolis, Indiana, USA), said that many of his company's customers on Print 01 have begun to evaluate the value of the processing system. He said: "They don't just want to buy a cutting machine. They want to buy cutting machines, elevators, bumpers, loading equipment and unloading equipment. The trend is to have more processing power and more automatic features."
The choice of automation products ranges from simple pallet jacks to sophisticated, high-speed systems. Printing companies with high-end equipment include labels and other professional printing companies, companies that use paper cutters twice a day or more, and companies that use 45-inch or larger presses.
Pallet jacks, stacker cranes, and joggers have a low-cost solution to improve the operator's inefficiency due to constant bending and getting up, which is to transport the paper to the cutting machine and raise it to a certain level The level of equipment. When the operator is working, a standard pallet crane can be used to adjust the raised height. However, in the factory, due to the flexibility of the pallet crane, it is often used by people.
In addition, a stacker crane that can be automatically moved can be used. It can be moved and locked next to the cutting equipment without losing it. The size of the crane should match the size of the press (28 x 40 inches or 48 x 48 inches). High-end stacker cranes also feature an automatic leveling function - the built-in photographic eye adjusts the height of the crane so that the stack remains at the same height during unloading and working. This allows the operator to work at a comfortable and consistent height.
In addition, the bumping process, which used to be manual alignment of the paper manually to the back gauge, was also automated. Common features include the ability to adjust the impact angle of the pedal and provide left or right hitting. The more expensive automated jogger also has an inflated workbench to lift the hitting paper to the cutting table.
Automatän (Plover, Wisconsin, USA) is a supplier of knockers and ventilators. It has the function of automatically flipping the paper on the pallet, ventilating and adjusting the loading and unloading, and cleaning the paper. It allows the user to stack multiple materials on a pallet. Or stack a stack of paper onto multiple pile tables.
In addition, you can also see the bumper with the rear splint and the squeeze stick. As each stack of material hits the paper, the cleat holds the material's rear end, and the pneumatically-driven squeeze bar cooperates with the paper to remove the air inside. This process can help operators build a dense paper pile that hits them perfectly. Perfecta has a bumper with an adjustable air-discharge roller. The work on it is always full, regardless of the size of the paper. The SA110A can handle up to 30 x 40 inches of paper.
Paper Stack Turning Machine According to John Neilsen, Regional Manager for Western Region at LDR International, the addition of a movable pile table with a collapsible impactor can increase productivity by up to 50%. The company is located in Portland, Oregon, in the northwestern port city of Oregon, and specializes in importing Itoh cutting systems and Kudo automatic movable stackers, joggers, stackers, and mobile systems. Mr. Neilsen explained that the jogger and splint eliminate the need to manually trim the material, while the squeeze roll can adjust the larger and denser paper stack. As the air composition has been removed, the stack is more compact, making it easier to fit into the cutter blade opening.
Some people confuse the jogger with the paper stacker. If you have a double sided press, the paper lift and stack may have to flip before cutting. It is easy to flip a small pile of paper, but flipping a pile of paper is another matter.
The manroland long-term partner Baumann Maschinenbau (Solms, Germany) recently introduced a BSW 3 Mobile with a capacity of 2200 pounds for a movable stack turning machine with a maximum fork-type opening of 52.4 inches. The company also supplies stainless steel and Formica airflow tables to various machines and can actually provide products of any size.
In order to keep the materials clean, some stack turning systems also have paper ventilation. There are also some special paper splints or grippers, jogger and squeeze rollers. Others use non-ionized "air flow" to eliminate static electricity.
Moving the finished material to a stacking table to transfer the finished material from the cutting machine to the stacker should be the work of two people unless you choose to operate automatically. In high-end systems such as the Transomat in Heidelberg and the Cut-tec 137 in Manroland, the operator only needs to press a button after the cutting is completed. The stack is clamped and then automatically moved along the air flow platform to the stacker. At this time, the operator can cut the next pile of paper without stopping, reducing the burden on operators and improving efficiency.
The Transomat operator was used to push the cut pile of paper onto the air platform connected to the Transomat workbench where the paper was automatically stacked until it was filled with a pallet.
In Print 01, Manroland demonstrated Cut-tec 137 machines with ASE automatic waste handling, a jogger, a gripper transport system and an unloading unit. A large format cutter combined with a bumper and material transfer system can cost between $200,000 and $1 million. But Kuehl of Heidelberger Company believes that because the equipment has the function to greatly improve the production capacity, high-cost investment can also be rewarded within six months.
The CIP3/4 job definition language standard broadens the path to full-automatic operation after printing. The CIP machine, which is compatible with the CIP standard, is capable of accepting layouts and trimming parameters and sending them directly to the cutter control system, enabling users to perform powerful CIP processes from the very beginning. Because paper is affected by many variables such as moisture, ink volume, and material weight, the cutting process cannot be fully automated - some minor adjustments are necessary. Heidelberg's CompuCut software for Polar cutters has the ability to automatically adjust the grippers and guide cuts.
Although printers will not require the cutting of 11 by 17 inches of material into 8.5 by 11 inches of material (without leaving a margin of surplus), minor changes can still result in major improvements in labor and production processes. Small and medium-sized printing companies should also estimate the condition of the stacker and use it in conjunction with the collision system. Large-volume printers benefit directly from semi-automatic or fully-automated paper handling systems for various paper cutting devices. A paper cutting device has four basic components: a knife, a table, a cleat, and a back gauge. In recent years, the improvement of automation has been the most significant.
Cutter: Look at the automated operator setting up a cutting device equipped with an automatic back gauge through a control panel. After the knife completes a cut, the back gauge will be repositioned to prepare for the next program cut.
Since the backlash must be moved quickly and accurately, high-speed cutting devices often use frequency-controlled drives and servo motors. In addition, the back gauge can also automatically tilt and rotate.
Most new cutting devices are equipped with automatic backstops; older models can be retrofitted. Graphic Machinery & Systems, Inc. (GMS), based in San Rafael, California, USA, offers a network-enabled microcut+ and microcut jr. for cutting sizes up to 37 inches. Global Systems, based in Dallas, Texas, USA, can also retrofit cutting equipment.
Some cutting equipment also has a PC-based program that is the best way to help users determine the efficiency of cutting work, and then can also reserve these parameters for repetitive work. When the job is transformed and the different operators work, the workflow can also be standardized and optimized through software.
Automatic waste cleaning is another alternative for cutting equipment. The cutting device table is opened so that the scraps that have been cut fall into the empty waste containers that have been emptied by vacuum. In label printing companies, paper stacks may be cut more than 70 times, and automatic removal is a very useful tool.
The balances currently used to weigh paper piles are usually built-in. Accurate paper weight weighing allows the operator to produce a defined number of sheets, just as if they were performing another quality control.
Automatic rear loading is another improvement. A bindery assistant works on the rear of the cutting device, hits the paper stack and installs it on the rear mounted air workbench. As soon as the assistant presses a button, a gripper device lifts the stack and places it in the blade. The system allows for a continuous and reasonable workflow, including the back and front. Also, the operator of the cutting equipment does not have to stop to load the machine.