Aluminum Plate Staging Table

WEMCO was awarded the contract to design and manufacture a fully automated heat treat furnace staging table for Kaiser Aluminum. The table is capable of aligning two large aluminum plates parallel on a random center line with 1/4″ accuracy. The machine is equipped with a positioning system capable of squaring and transferring plates to the correct position along the width of the table after they are set randomly by a vacuum crane. The positioning system utilizes automated photo-eye technology, which travels on a high-speed linear actuator allowing the machine’s Allen Bradley PLC to measure, calculate, and determine the exact order if the operations and travel distance necessary to properly align the plates without collision. It then feeds them into the furnace. The machine can detect single or double plates from any position with they are set on the table with a cycle time of under 20 seconds. The controls system can be viewed and operated from a remote Human Machine Interface (HMI) complete with Wonderware screen interfaces and options for manually running the staging table. This machine was designed, fabricated, machined, assembled, wired, and tested in our Spokane, WA facility.