Rebrained machine now a lot smarter

Brightwater Engineering’s electrical and automation team recently completed an upgrade for ABC Tissue Products high speed packaging machine.
ABC Tissue Products are an Australasian toilet tissue manufacturer with a facility in South Auckland. Earlier this year the company contracted Brightwater to perform a comprehensive upgrade of a high speed toilet roll packaging machine.
The Italian manufactured machine splits the bulk reams of tissue into standard toilet rolls, which are then collated into individual rolls, wrapped in plastic and palletised ready for distribution to retailers.
Brightwater Engineering replaced the old controller with a safety PLC, installed new servo systems and implemented production and downtime monitoring.
“We wrote all the code for the machine logic, motor controls and the SCADA. Before we did this we spent time in the factory and learnt how to run the machine so we could see how to improve it.
“Now it’s not only re-brained, it’s a lot smarter with improved functionality and performance as well as meeting Category 3 and the new EN ISO 13849-1 safety performance level requirements,” says Brightwater Engineering Auckland, general manager Peter Reiber.
Brightwater Engineering also re-documented the machine’s operation and software to make fault-finding a lot easier, produced all new electrical drawings, an operator manual, a training manual and provided the training for the operators to run the machine.
Initially favouring a standard refurbishment offered by the Italian machine manufacturer, it wasn’t until Brightwater offered a comprehensive upgrade alternative that ABC general manager Phillip Ta realised the additional value from having a packaging machine that could now be fully supported by a local company.
“Now three months down the track our productivity is up. My staff are a lot more confident in what they’re doing and that’s a big plus. They are now engaging more effectively with the machine knowing they will be safe if anything happens,” says Mr Ta.