Web Cleaning & Static Control If it ain’t broke,
don’t fix it Converter sat down with the guys at Meech to discuss the company’s direction for the future, which, thanks to encouraging growth in its core ranges and expansion of new lines, is simply “more of the same”
cleaning, and air technology systems for the packaging, printing, converting and pharmaceutical industries, among many others. The company’s operations include subsidiaries in the USA, Belgium, China and India with distributors covering all four corners of the global market. Across its main categories, including
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compressed air technology and ionised air systems, in the UK and Europe Meech is one of the largest providers of equipment, with many of its newest systems quickly becoming some of the best selling on the market. “A key point is that our sales depend on
knowledge of the application,” explains Iain Cameron, the company’s marketing director. “Having offices and distributors local to our markets ensures speed of response. This, the application knowledge and the flexibility is very important to us and helps us innovate new ideas. “We regularly have training sessions at our
UK site every couple of months and we collate seven or eight distributors from around the world to give everyone a chance to discuss applications. It’s a good way of sharing knowledge and ideas of what works in different areas.” Cameron says that Meech’s strategy is to consolidate and support its long-term and established distributors, whilst also growing sales in markets with new ones; key to this are markets like South America and Asia, he says. “We are currently seeing very strong sales
figures in all regions and globally we are approximately 30 per cent ahead of this time last
eech is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of static control, contact and non-contact web
year. This growth is encouraging, especially with the uncertain times ahead; our direction for the future is more of the same. “On the product front the company has some
exciting new additions to the Hyperion range of static control equipment in the form of the new Hyperion 971IPS-30, an extra-long range - the most powerful we have ever produced. Also, the web cleaner market continues to play an increasingly important role in what we do and with further developments expected we hope to continue the success we have had.”
NEW, SAFER STATIC CONTROL SYSTEMS For many years the AC style of ioniser has been the most popular; early static control systems were transformer-based as the electronics industry was not ready to produce high voltage equipment. But there is now a move towards low voltage power devices that produce higher output.
Above: The CyClean machine in action. Middle: The Hyperion 971IPS-30 Pulsed DC Ionising Bar
bars. A single fault could prevent all the bars from operating. Lack of maintenance could go undetected resulting in quality and productivity issues. Now, bars can be connected to the monitoring circuits and can let the operator know when they need cleaning when the lights flash red. Maintenance can be scheduled-in rather than having to be done unexpectedly. “We are always looking at ways of making our
systems smaller, but there’s always the need for rigidity when you’re spanning a machine. It may be that we can make it a bit more compact but that could raise other issues.”
Rogers adds that as time goes on people will
expect more ability to drive products over the control systems and that power will have to increase safely as machine speeds go up.
David Rogers, Meech’s technical director, says this is the way the market is heading. The company took pulse DC systems in the mid 1990s and developed them for industrial use. Now all its new systems offer monitoring – in the form of green and red flashing indicators – and this is one of the major developments and benefits from pulse DC low voltage systems. “Our latest bar, the 924, is our most compact
Meech UK headquarters in Oxfordshire 26 July/August 2016
design and the driving force behind it is to allow, particularly OEMs, to use a DC bar so they don’t have the worry of threading high voltage cables through the machinery,” says Rogers. “We now have customers who lay on the low voltage cabling and simply connect the bar. There’s no danger involved. The real benefit is that each bar is individually powered and monitored. “Historically an AC-based system would have one central transformer connected to multiple
DEVELOPMENTS AHEAD IN WEB CLEANING Elsewhere, Meech’s most recent addition to its range of four web cleaning technologies was the CyClean non-contact system. Alongside this is the Air Handling Unit (AHU), which provides the airflows and filtration. The AHUv3 and the AHUv3 Compact tackle both wide and narrow web applications; this range also includes touchscreen technology and provides a level of control and monitoring not seen before.
Adam Battrick tells Converter: “CyClean provides the user with the complete package and leads the non-contact market in terms of the cleaning head and the AHUv3 that powers it. We have been told that CyClean outperforms and is very user-friendly compared to other systems. Since its launch it has quickly become the market-leading non-contact system. We deliver several CyClean systems of different sizes per week to a diverse customer base across the world.” Hinting at the future of the web cleaning
market, Battrick continues: “While we can’t provide too many details we can say that we will have interesting developments of non-contact technology and our AHUs that will further cement the Meech position as market leader.”
www.meech.com
www.convertermag.co.uk
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