A Wisconsin paperboard mill had experienced a failure of the Secondary Arms on the reel section. This is where the paper sheet is wound onto a spool that is driven from a reel drum. Continuous production requires that spool changes can occur “on the fly”.
The problem was that the portion of the secondary arm that supports a cam follower broke off. An emergency welding repair had to be made. Unfortunately, the resulting downtime was costly due to lost production hours. Additionally, it was unclear how long the repair would endure before it would fail.
One challenge to the mill was that it had difficulty sourcing a replacement part in a reasonable amount of time. The age of the machine played a factor as well. After contacting Baum Machine and inspecting the reel section, it was determined that they could manufacture new Secondary Arms to meet the customer’s requirements.
On a scheduled down, Baum’s engineering team visited the mill to take measurements for reverse engineering. Since the parts were on the machine, a few critical bore dimensions could not be recorded.
However, it could be possible once they were removed from the machine, but that would lead to more costly downtime for the mill. That problem was solved by proposing to manufacture complete less the critical bores. When the mill had their scheduled down, the parts would be removed and brought to Baum Machine, dimensions recorded, bores completed, and the new Secondary Arms returned to the mill for installation on the same day.
The mill operators were pleased to learn that the new Secondary Arms could be replaced during the course of the scheduled machine down, eliminating unnecessary downtime. Also, the new Arms were made from steel, not a casting, and modified for additional strength.
• Custom replacement part
• Cost-effective solution
• Steel construction
• Longer service life
• Made in the USA