PRESS RELEASE
May 5, 1995
Swedish patent method
reduces tool-change times

European patent has now been granted to the Swedish company AKV-Ortic on its Rational Coil Slitting System (RCSS). This has been developed primarily for metal-slitting work in the steel and aluminium industries, and is claimed to increase productivity by up to 200% compared with traditional tool-changing methods. Tool-changing times are said to be reduced to three minutes while considerably improving operator working conditions.

A Swedish patents application on the RCSS have existed since 1988, and, according to AKV-Ortic, the system has worked well for customers. This has forced the competition to develop similar systems, with the result that obtaining European patent cover has become a major priority for the company.
The equipment consists essentially of a slitter incorporating a rotary tooling set-up magazine. The system can be operated either manually or via a robot system from ABB Production Development AB The robot system could be of arm or gantry robot type. Software for the tooling set-up system has been developed by Starprog AB, Stockholm.
The set-up magazine has four pairs of shafts, allowing advance loading of the correct slitting tooling for the next work program. When a work program is finished, the used tool slides over to an empty set-up magazine shaft, after which the new tool set is rotated forwards and slid over to the slitter arbor. The used tools in the set-up magazine can then be changed manually or automatically. Loading of slitting tools is rapid in both cases and is considerably simpler than with traditional methods. After tool-changing, the tooling pack is locked hydraulically on the slitter arbor without the need for an extra locking nut.
In addition to greatly reduced downtime and thus increased productivity in the existing line, the patented equipment also improves working conditions. According to the manufacturer, heavy tool lifting is reduced, or eliminated entirely if the automatic system is used, and the risk of incorrect tool selection or handling damage during tool changing is minimised.

Fully-automatic equipment
One of the leading advocates of the RCSS is Avesta Sheffield of Nyby, Sweden, which installed a fully-automatic system including robot set-up of tooling. This system is handling up to 20 tool changes per 8-hour shift.
The company's cold-rolled steel division has an annual slitting of 140 000 tonnes of steel strip, for applications such as pipe manufacture by Avesta Sandvik Tubes.
‘The RCSS equipment increases effective slitting time and thus improves our ability to meet customer requirements in terms of rapid delivery of smaller order lots in various strip widths', said Avesta Sheffield Divisional Manager Lennart Paijkull.

Captions:
1 The Rational Coil Slitting System (RCSS) from Swedish company AKV-Ortic has now been patented in Europe. The system is claimed to give large increases in productivity and to improve working conditions in tool-changing for slitting operations in ferrous and non-ferrous metal-production industries. The picture shows the facilities at Wirsbo Stålrör AB

2 The set-up magazine for the slitter at Avesta Sheffield, Nyby, has robot equipment from ABB Production Development.

For further information please contact:
AKV-ORTIC AB
Gunnar Elfström
Kvarngatan 13
714 31 KOPPARBERG
Sweden
Tel: +46 580 714 50
Fax: +46 580 123 51

This text is available on 3.5" disk (Word 5.1a) formatted for Macintosh or PC.
requirements in terms of rapid delivery of smaller order lots in various strip widths', said Avesta Sheffield Divisional Manager Lennart Paijkull.

Captions:
1 The Rational Coil Slitting System (RCSS) from Swedish company AKV-Ortic has now been patented in Europe. The system is claimed to give large increases in productivity and to improve working conditions in tool-changing for slitting operations in ferrous and non-ferrous metal-production industries. The picture shows the facilities at Wirsbo Stålrör AB

2 The set-up magazine for the slitter at Avesta Sheffield, Nyby, has robot equipment from ABB Production Development.

For further information please contact:
Elva Team Italia
Mr Angelo Meani
Tel: 039-32 33 20
Fax: 039-32 26 97

This text is available on 3.5" disk (Word 5.1a) formatted for Macintosh or PC.
requirements in terms of rapid delivery of smaller order lots in various strip widths', said Avesta Sheffield Divisional Manager Lennart Paijkull.

Captions:
1 The Rational Coil Slitting System (RCSS) from Swedish company AKV-Ortic has now been patented in Europe. The system is claimed to give large increases in productivity and to improve working conditions in tool-changing for slitting operations in ferrous and non-ferrous metal-production industries. The picture shows the facilities at Wirsbo Stålrör AB

2 The set-up magazine for the slitter at Avesta Sheffield, Nyby, has robot equipment from ABB Production Development.

For further information please contact:
Ingenieurbüro für Adjustage-Technologie
Dipl. Ing Herbert Hellweg
Phone and fax: 04461-5107

or

AKV-Ortic Gunnar Elfström
Kvarngatan 13
714 31 Kopparberg,SWEDEN
Tel: +46 8 580 123 51 Fax: +46 8 680 714 50

This text is available on 3.5" disk (Word 5.1a) formatted for Macintosh or PC.