DISTRIBUTION Just one poor crimp


Ian Knight, Chief Information Officer at PP Control & Automation (PP C&A), explains how you overcome the costly issue of unplanned downtime caused by poor electrical connectivity.


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t is well-documented that the single biggest contributor to machine downtime and field failure is poor electrical connectivity. Just one poor crimp connection can cause machine failure, and, when you consider the sheer volume of electrical connections in and around a piece of complex ‘kit’, it is a daunting challenge to overcome.


Customers will want to avoid the damaging costs associated with this failure by getting assurances from outsourcing partners or control panel builders that they recognise the importance of repeatable quality within their own manufacturing processes.


This is where the right level of due diligence comes into play. Many companies will say they understand it, but in order to deliver the levels of performance required to eliminate poor connectivity then significant investment is required.


Investment in automation for both cable manufacture and cable testing, investment in development initiatives to engage the best people and train the necessary skills, and finally, investment in continually upgrading the facility and processes.


The worrying cost of downtime Each factory is different, but the average automotive manufacturer loses over £18,000 per minute when the production line stops. As you can imagine, this quickly adds up. Shutdowns, scheduled or not, can eat up anywhere between 1 and 10% of available production time and, certain sectors, report as much as one fifth of annual capacity being eroded in this way.


If the average large manufacturing plant wasn’t hit hard enough every year, Fortune Global 500 (FG500) predict industrial organisations lose approximately 3.3million


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hours of time through machine failure, an eye watering £800m in financial currency.


Cutting out the costs by addressing connectivity


Automated Test Equipment (ATE) is a term you may be familiar with. It uses automation to measure and evaluate connectivity for a given cable harness quickly and precisely. The process not only looks at ‘point to point’ accuracy of a harness but can also perform other checks in relation to its construction, such as high or low resistances. It also carries out Hi-Potential tests, which covers the adequacy of electrical insulation. By testing cables in this way, you minimise the opportunity for manufacturing errors not being identified and rectified before the cable harness gets integrated into a larger, more complex control system and associated machinery.


This is where we see faults develop later down the line, often once the machine is installed and commissioned, mostly due to environmental conditions, as well as vibration. If you get to this point, identifying the issue can be extremely difficult and time consuming, leading to unnecessary and costly downtime, particularly with intermittent issues. An area of significant investment is in automated production and ‘in process’ test, called CFM or Crimp Force Monitoring, for single core cable production. This utilises a 100% checking regime of all crimps being applied, ensuring strip back lengths, crimp


FEBRUARY 2024 | ELECTRONICS FOR ENGINEERS


position and applied crimp force are all in line with the required specifications. In 2019, we installed a world first in crimping technology, which is an Artos CRX33- GVM, modified for our exact production requirements.


It provided shorter handling distances and could process cables at over 5 metres per second, whilst still maintaining very high levels of accuracy. Every single core cable went through automated cable prep, automatic cutting, crimping, and indenting with direct ink jet printing.


With technology, you cannot stand still. That’s why, fast forward five years, and we have just installed a £250,000 Komax Zeta 640 harness machine fitted with 2-off crimp press and a twisting unit to improve strand consolidation prior to crimping, boosting crimp yield in the process.


Utilising improved crimp force monitoring


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