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An AMS/Siemens Upgrade Doubles Production Rates on a Drywall Manufacturing Line
Drywall tipple machine now places wet drywall sheets to within .10” on drying decks

October 28, 2010, Vancouver, WA ─ Applied Motion Systems, Inc., a leading provider of factory automation and industrial drive systems, successfully upgraded the drive and controls systems on a drywall tipple machine in a drywall manufacturing plant.

The tipple machine positions a forty-foot-long conveyor to place wet sheets of drywall onto several drying decks in the plant’s kiln. The tipple must accurately perform this positioning task at elevated production rates.

Before the system upgrade, on/off signals controlled the tipple machine’s motor and brake for vertical positioning of the tipple conveyor. The tipple drive system could not keep up with the production speeds required by the production line and the clutch/brake mechanism required regular maintenance. The customer had to limit production rates to avoid tipple performance weaknesses and risks.

AMS engineers evaluated the existing system and interviewed machine operators, maintenance staff, and management to gain a solid understanding of the upgrade requirements. Both teams worked together to develop an aggressive implementation plan that would limit machine downtime to only three days.

AMS managed the system design, fabrication, programming, and installation of the new control system. The upgrade included nine Siemens G120 drives set up for sensorless vector control of the deck conveyor motors and the tipple conveyor motor. Position targets, move velocities, and acceleration parameters are transmitted over the Profibus link to the S120, and tipple moves are initiated by logic within the PLC. The motion controller within the drive closes the servo loop with the motor encoder to provide fast, accurate, and repeatable positioning.

This project achieved the following results:

• Doubled throughput of oven loading capacity
• Increased positioning accuracy and repeatability, eliminating board damage at elevated production rates
• Reduced operator setup time
• Simplified diagnostic and maintenance capabilities with all drives sharing a common network and built in parameter storage
• Improved energy efficiency through the use of a line regenerative common bus architecture
• Dramatically reduced maintenance requirements through the elimination of clutch/brake assemblies used in the previous positioning system
• Production downtime limited to less than three days for system installation and commissioning

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About AMS
Founded in 1995 by veteran drive and motion engineers, Applied Motion Systems, Inc., provides cutting-edge factory automation and performance-oriented drive systems for a broad range of industries.