Axon Introduces Next-Generation Shrink Sleeve Applicator Unequaled in Price and Performance

• Axon’s new Lanzara shrink sleeve applicator is designed to provide customers with the highest overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) in its class. (Axon Pack Expo Booth # N-5417)

RALEIGH, North Carolina — Axon, powered by ProMach, showcases at Pack Expo in Chicago, November 2-5, the company’s next-generation shrink sleeve applicator – the Lanzara. A servo-controlled, mandrel-style machine, the Lanzara was designed from the beginning to deliver the highest output at the most sensible price of any applicator in the industry at speeds up to 400 units per minute. (Axon Pack Expo Booth N-5417)

The heart of the Lanzara is the PacDrive™ 3 automation platform from Schneider Electric™, which integrates PLC, motion, and IT functionality into a high-performance packaging-machine solution. The PacDrive 3 updates I/O motion blocks at a blistering one millisecond each, giving Lanzara outstanding motion control and overall flexibility. For example, with the new Axon Smart Speed Control feature, Lanzara can automatically increase or decrease the sleeving rate, matching upstream and downstream line speed without operator involvement for ‘set it and forget it’ operation. Smart Speed Control ensures optimum throughput, uptime, and quality.

Lanzara meets the PackML standard and delivers seamless communication and integration with up-stream and down-stream equipment. This results in faster start up, closely integrated operation with other machines on the line, and more rapid troubleshooting.

With a new Smart Cutting System, Axon has dramatically improved its film cutting technology; reducing the number of blade changeovers required by 66 percent when compared to past generation solutions. In addition, Lanzara features a new Smart Film Feed System that simplifies film threading and greatly improves the control of the film web as it moves through the machine, especially at higher speeds, reducing waste and downtime.

The new 10-inch HMI color touch-screen display provides an intuitive, highly visual interface for operators and service technicians. The HMI is the window into the Lanzara’s smart diagnostics program that monitors machine performance, makes calculations based on that performance and history of preventative maintenance, and alerts operators to the exact date a maintenance procedure should be carried out. Smart diagnostics leading to preventive maintenance ensures the machine operates at peak efficiency and produces quality products hour after hour.

Another preventive maintenance feature is the optional Axon Smart Touch Security fingerprint reader that replaces password-protected access to machine operating parameters. This rugged reader stores up to 200 individual fingerprints and is more effective in maintaining access control to the machine than passwords, which can easily be forgotten, lost, or shared. Research conducted with customers during Lanzara’s development revealed that personnel with unauthorized access tended to make what they thought were routine machine adjustments, but these changes invariably led to decreased throughput and poor quality product.

“For more than a year, our development team worked with Schneider Electric on the software underpinnings that would take mechanical performance to a new level in terms of output and uptime,” said Brad Wegner, Vice President and General Manager, Axon. “We visited customers to see how our machines were operated in the field in order to design a machine that is incredibly easy to use. And, we discovered the wealth of possibilities presented by PackML for seamless communication and fast time to market. All of these efforts led to a machine with Lanzara’s extraordinary productivity and sensible price.”

For more information on Lanzara and for the packaging industry’s most comprehensive technical support program, ProMach’s ProCustomer, call 1-800-598-8601 and visit www.AxonCorp.com. And be sure to stop by the Axon Booth # N-5417 at Pack Expo 2014.