It sounds cliché, but ‘Let us find a way to get your job done,’ is not just a Mission Statement gathering dust on a wall in the customer service department. It is truly the credo by which each RIS Paper employee lives. And a Maxson DFK Sheeter is making it a reality.
The MAXSON DFK dual knife rotary sheeter can precision sheet a wide range of coated papers and board grades at speeds up to 1300 fpm.
RIS Paper is a $600 million, privately owned distributor of fine paper, industrial and communication products with 28 locations dotting the map from Texas to the East Coast. Twenty-five percent of the company is employee owned, demonstrating the employees’ drive, serious intentions for company success, and attention to detail in the areas of their responsibility.
The creation of a converting division is a logical step to the paper merchant committed to growth. Expanding into converting provides improved service to customers. In addition to delivery of roll stock, this service includes just-in-time delivery of sheeted material in standard and special sheet sizes.
The first of these converting facilities opened its doors in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in January 1999. The central location of this brand-new facility enables the company to express ship products by 5:30 p.m., that will reach its customer’s plant by the next day.
According to Vice President Charlie Watson, rather than competing with the mills, the mills and RIS Paper blend their strengths to bring value to the market. “Our forte, is flexibility of scheduling and our ability to accept short runs. No order is too small! We will never bump a small job to take on a longer run.”
“We can provide the same advantages to a printer as though they were sheeting in-house. Once again, a blend of strengths for the benefit of the customer.”
Lofty goals: Flexibility and Quick Delivery
RIS Paper sheets board, but its main emphasis is coated, private label papers. Roll stock is provided by domestic and foreign sources.
Of critical importance in allowing RIS to realize its lofty goals of flexibility and quick delivery, is ease of set up. Despite the size and versatility of the Maxson DFK Sheeter, it is still only a two-man operation. Four shaftless, self-loading roll stands have a ‘pivot arm’ design that allows a single operator to load rolls up to 10,000 lbs. Each roll change takes less than five minutes. “Webbing up the machine 3 or 4 times a shift for job changes has to be made as simple as possible,” remarked Beverlin, “and we change rolls even more often than that.”
A four-station web-conditioning unit serves all four roll stands regardless of the assortment of materials being run. A collection of varying size de-curl bars and rolls is mounted on turret-type mechanisms. The bar-of-choice can then be locked into position to handle whatever stock type or material thickness that is to be sheeted. Watson deduced, “Without this kind of equipment, you can’t do the job. You lose control. You lose the business.”
Maxson’s web conditioning unit serves all four roll stands at RIS Paper regardless of the type of material being run.
“Precision cutting is critical,” Watson said. “All the machine components are important in maintaining accuracy of cut. There is no latitude in the tolerances when we talk accuracy with a customer. We cannot offer a sheet out of specification,” Watson summarized. The DFK Sheeter’s crosscutting knives decrease dust creation and eliminate skived edges. “Perfection in cut quality is always the main focus and because the Maxson DFK provides it, you will not even find a guillotine trimmer in the building,” asserted Watson. “Our cutoffs have been as short as 16″ and as long as 65.”
Features that maximize performance during operation of the DFK Sheeter are found in the machine’s overlap delivery system. A reject gate can divert sheets out of the tape section during startup of a new job with a size change or when splices occur during the run. The patented Airfoil Overlap System is crucial in transporting jam-free sheets through the tape system and into the stacker at higher speeds. The removal of any dust particles takes place in this section with the aid of the PEN MAM Dust Collector System. Controlled air simultaneously vacuums the top and bottom of the cut packet as it passes through. As length changes are made at the tape sections overlap carriage the adjustment is automatically made in the stacker by way of a connecting frame. The rugged stacker has a chain lifted load table with 8,000 lb. capacity and can receive two piles up to 61″ high. To enhance higher productivity, the sheeter is equipped with a continuous operation system that accumulates the beginning of a new pile as each completed pile is removed. Once removal is achieved, the accumulator positions the short pile on the new skid without interrupting the sheeting operation.
RIS Converting is building an inventory of roll stock and sheeted material. They are guaranteeing rapid delivery to customers and acting as a warehousing facility for the entire company. “Often, we’ll intentionally overbuy lots for customers,” said Watson. “Recently we had two rolls left over from a completed job. A customer called needing a shipment of that material. To get the customer started on his job, we set up and ran those two rolls and shipped immediately. It may not have been convenient, but we want to service our customers in any way necessary.”
Reprinted from Converting Magazine, September 1999
