On Your Knees Please

Some insight into the grit and bare nuts and bolts of site work now.

Longtime clients upgrade their control system here to give their Carmichael Labeling Machine renewed fervour.

All hands on deck and all manner of ducking and diving provide the mainstay of machine overhauls and shop floor installs.

Watching that site video reminded me of the industrial exoskeletons which entered the field a few years ago.

Designed to afford super heroine strength to engineers who’re able to lift and operate very heavy hand tools with some kits.

Another use is ongoing and consistent back and leg support, meaning that engineers are able to bend in an array of positions without overbearing or accruing too much tension.

Maybe one day an exoskeleton will support bodies from vertical through to horizontal and every angle in between?

Soft shoulder tissues are a high impact area at this plant, and also take the longest recovery times.

So Ford have embedded exoskeleton suits to lift the pains and pressures from engineers, especially those involved in high repetition roles.

There may be a high outlay for such support mechanisms, though ensuring morale, happiness, and longevity for experienced staff has unquantifiable benefits indeed.

Here the job of a protective exoskeleton is over.

Will technology ever be able to replicate the power, delicacy, and sustainability of the natural world?

We hope so.

Control System:  Cladding

To date there are one hundred 2M cladding control systems worldwide.  Whilst we’ve placed ankle trackers on most of them so we can monitor and improve their behaviour remotely, sometimes site visits are a must.

In this instance, the client became increasingly disconcerted by a growing graveyard of encoders…

A control system’s journey may well begin with code, but it invariably takes road-trips to surrounding neighbourhoods.  Electric City, Cabinet Cove, and Mechanics Metropolis, to name but a few.  This site visit is a good example of the simple tweaks that may come to mind for an experienced controls engineer.

In this case, rigid mounting meant the encoders had no scope to move during their jobs.  Routinely over-heating, their life-spans were causing both frustration and concern.

Now flexible mounting allows the replacement encoder to breathe.  So the moral of this story is ~ whereas support is paramount, suffocation is a misstep.

Control System:  Rain Room

Where industrial systems are concerned, replacement parts often require changing parameters and tuning drives.  This is exactly what this site visit entailed ~ ensuring the hardware upgrade stitches seamlessly into the existing control system.

So the rainfall remains continuous in the heart of Al Majarrah Park.  This sensory relief provides an oasis in a city which may have as little as 20 rainfall days per year.  If only there were an exchange programme for the sunshine and rainfall of cities.

The beautiful purpose built home of the Rain Room Sharjah ~ the very first permanent Rain Room installation in the world.