Design and Programming of a Wire Winder Device for Extrusion Activity in the Metal-Mechanical Industry

Abstract

The present research is focused on the analysis of an industrial activity where the case under study is wire extrusion activity, which has been developed using old machines. This activity is analyzed considering the task and its elements to identify the movements and sequence of actions performed by the workforce and the machines. One of these activities is the roll-up of lead wire coming from the extruding machine. The task is done by the workforce 73 times during a shift and roughly consists in transporting the wire to the pulley guide and driving the lead wire until the container is rolled up manually. The analysis shows that the workers are exposed to hazardous conditions that could affect their health, meaning they are under risk of suffering an injury or a disease by exposure to repetitive actions and high temperatures (>90 C). Based on the latter, the design and development of a wire winder device has been proposed, which implements a programmable logic controller and servomechanism to replace the activities done manually. A ladder diagram is proposed to control the action performed by the servomechanism based on a stimulus received from the environment.