WSP Textiles slashes yarn production costs with ABB drives 28 October 2014

WSP Textiles, which manufacturers yarn for billiard and snooker tables, as well as tennis ball brands including Slazenger and Dunlop, says it has significantly improved uptime while also saving £18,000 a year on energy costs since installing a variable speed drive (VSD) from ABB.

Alan Harnden, technical manager at the Gloucestershire firm, says that he replaced a Variator (mechanical speed control system) on its spinning machines with an ABB high-efficiency motor and VSD – immediately eliminating stoppages and saving on energy costs.

He explains that speed control was the problem, with the pulley-based Variator calling the shots and the spinning machine motor running constantly at full speed, but also experience mechanical problems.

"We wanted to get rid of the variator system, as we were suffering breakdowns once a fortnight, [which] entailed a major strip down ... taking two men up to one day," comments Harnden.

"We were also losing a lot of production time: the spinning machines feed other machines downstream, which affected production volumes. As we are a 24/7 operation, these breakdowns were very disruptive."

Harnden says that, in the end the choice came down to getting variable speed drives or buying a new spinning machine – which was never close to being viable.

The choice of ABB's general purpose ACS550 drive was made easy since it fitted into the existing control panel without modification, so technicians could pick up the original signals.

WSP asked ABB authorised value provider APDS to provide a turnkey system because it was the local supplier, but, says Harnden, was also "very competitive" and customer focused.

Says Harnden: "There have been some energy savings but the biggest benefit for us is that there is no down time since the VSD was installed. We have had no need to think about them and no spare parts are needed."

And he adds that the company is also achieving better production quality as the ability to vary motor speed allows operators to adjust yarn tension, giving a more controllable stop – so avoiding tangles.

"VSDs have definitely come into their own and we would now fit them in place of a gearbox solution every time," says Harnden.

Brian Tinham

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