Touch screen cuts steel construction time

When operators at SME Industries (West Jordan, Utah) first tried to use their new Burney flame cutting machine to build flat-plate beam connectors, they had to waste time manually tracing the part with an electronic eye to load its parameters into a controller. To make the new machine more efficient, Bruce MacNaughtan, SME's MIS manager decided to use a Touch Stat...

By Staff October 1, 1998

When operators at SME Industries (West Jordan, Utah) first tried to use their new Burney flame cutting machine to build flat-plate beam connectors, they had to waste time manually tracing the part with an electronic eye to load its parameters into a controller. To make the new machine more efficient, Bruce MacNaughtan, SME’s MIS manager decided to use a Touch Station PC with WinDNC software from Greco Systems here.

Touch Station’s small size helped it fit easily on the cutter. Mr. MacNaughtan installed it in an ARCNet configuration, which allowed a long distance link between the Touch Station on top of the machine and its server, located 350 ft away in an office. This link prevented SME from having to reconfigure its shop floor, and the later addition of an Ethernet network made the operation even more efficient.

Mr. MacNaugtan says SME saved 50% or more on the time it would have taken to continue using the cutter’s electronic eye, and this increased shop efficiency and eventually SME’s profits. SME ordered a second Touch Station for a Burney flame cutter it installed in January 1998 at its new plant in Pocatello, Id.

For more information, visit www.controleng.com/info .