Stacks of savings

Smurfit Kappa has saved almost £70,000 by using ABB motion control products in a refurbishment project on a cardboard sheet stacking machine at a site in Mold.

The stacker consists of two hydraulic lift tables, each fed via five conveyor sections.

The speed of each conveyor section was controlled by its own 7.5 kW servo drive to match the loading cycle of the lift tables. When this failed and the stacker OEM said the drive was now obsolete, ABB was contacted.

Of two options suggested, Smurfit Kappa opted for an ABB motion control drive, ACSM1, and reuse of the servo motor gearboxes. This option was less expensive th an one proposed by the stacker OEM, with the cost for one servo drive, complete with a filter, choke and resolver interface card representing a 70% saving on the alternative solution.

Smurfit Kappa carried out an energ y consumption comparison between the modified lower stacker and the original upper stacker.

The 8h monitoring, with an energ y profile logger, showed that over a year the modified lower stacker would save £1000+ in energy costs which equates to 7.9t of CO2 saved p er year.