Slitter Man

I start this blog post with the caveat that this really is my personal blog, so nothing in this post represents the views of my employers!  I have been putting a lot of thought into how to write and design exciting adverts for our new low cost slitter without following the industry standard of either: Showing a photo of a beige machine with a list of stats Showing a  tenuously linked 'concept' stock image What came of this 'left field' brainstorming is the advert you see below.  There are several problems with this advert, none of which I'm going to list here, but I still think it's quite fun.  We're not going to be using this advert anywhere, so it really was just a thought piece, but if we don't shoot from the hip with new ideas then stagnation is inevitable. I've never put out an advert that I'm not entirely happy with, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop searching for a better idea!

Roll Handling is a subject that naturally rises to the surface quite often at Universal Converting Equipment , this comes as no surprise as the majority of the equipment we manufacture is designed for processing rolls, and those rolls have to safely get to our machines before they can be processed. One of the issues we've noticed with a lot of third party roll handling trolleys on the market is that they don't appear to be very well set up for unloading a roll at a different angle to how it was loaded.  To clarify I'm going to give you a very simple scenario:  You buy in your jumbo rolls on pallets, they arrive on said pallets neatly standing on end.  Your slitter runs rolls horizontally, and so you need a way of getting the rolls off the pallet and onto the slitter unwind shaft without your spine exploding, and you've probably guessed by now that we have the answer to this potentially dangerous problem... If this blog was a shopping channel now would be the point...

Core Cutters have been at the forefront of my mind over the last few days, mostly because we have been working with our video team on a new demonstration video for our Automatic Core Cutter . You can view our rather smart new video below, and you can find out more about Automatic Core Cutters (and of course buy one) by contact me directly or by visiting  https://www.universalconvertingequipment.com/core-cutters/automatic-core-cutter P.S I'm taking bookings for Core Cutter demos down here in Ipswich at the moment, so get in touch if you want to come and have a go on one of our demonstration machines!

This is potentially an interesting idea, I've created a 'Slitter Clinic' on the Linked In website.  The idea behind the slitter clinic is that slitter owners, managers and operators can drop by and ask advice in an environment that isn't commercially orientated. I don't know if this idea has legs, but if you don't try you never find out! Visit the slitter clinic -  http://t.co/Pj3Lfwi6

This follows on from my last post about slitter repair - we have added a fast response form to our website for slitter repair requests. You are, of course, still welcome to call us at any time on +44 (0)1473 403333 but using the Slitter Rewinder Repair Request form at  https://www.universalconvertingequipment.com/about-universal/slitter-rewinder-repair-request is there for you should prefer to contact us in that way.

Slitter downtime is something everyone wants to avoid - when a machine isn't running it isn't being productive, and therefore it isn't making money.  Ensuring that slitter rewinders (and of course, all other converting machinery) run at peak efficiency is a two-way street, and one of the many things that makes me proud to work at Universal Converting Equipment is our ability to respond to customers' service needs fast, really fast. Late yesterday afternoon we took a call from the production manager at a UK facility who was tearing his hair out due to the failure of a third party machine.  We immediately dispatched an engineer, and even although the failed machine wasn't one that we had built our expert was able to get the machine back up and running in well under an hour. This speed of response is by no means unusual for us, but the reason I wanted to mention it here on my blog is that I was fortunate enough to be the person who took the call from the very el...

The ' Slitter Anatomy ' section on our website is proving very popular, but because the images that are used to explain which part performs which function are of our largest slitter (the Universal X9 ) I thought it might be useful to have a look at the anatomy of the duplex slitter we have at the other end of the range (the low cost, small footprint Universal X1 ). Anatomy of a small slitter. Unwind Section The unwind section includes an airshaft for mounting the unwind / parent roll, this shaft lifts out so that it can be fed through the parent roll.  The parent / jumbo roll is then loaded back into the machine and secured using safety chucks.  The parent roll is held in place using bladders that expand when inflated and hold the roll in place. Rewind section The airshafts on the rewind section are fitted with air bladders that hold the cores for the finished rolls in place when inflated.  The airshafts are inflated via the touchscreen control panel.  The...