FABTECH Expo provides an excellent forum for introducing new product innovations to metal fabricators and others in the metalworking industry. So at our FABTECH 2023 booth in Chicago with our friends at Bescutter, we made sure to introduce a slate of our engineering team’s favorite innovations for the TAB Wrapper Tornado line of orbital wrapping machines. For pallet wrapping metal parts and finished metallic products, our latest new product launches and ideas offer serious operational upgrades in packaging and material handling:
Orbital Wrapper Innovations
The coolest upgrade is also the hottest. Instead of using a blade to cut the stretch wrap after wrapping a pallet load, our new Hot Wire Cutting System automatically draws a thin, heated wire through the plastic film. Then it retracts and hides the wire for safe, quick cooling in time for the next pallet to wrap. No blades to sharpen or replace.
Our engineering friends may especially appreciate the elegance in how we upgraded the counterbalance. When the stretch wrap dispensing unit rotates around the wrapping ring applying stretch wrap around the pallet load, its weight needs to be balanced by an opposing weight. The new counterbalance design replaces a fixed weight with a steel bar laminated directly into the wrapping ring. This more evenly distributes the weight around the circumference of the ring and reduces the impact of any vibrations for smoother operation.
But wait, there’s more to how we upgraded the wrapping ring. We also replaced the nine-piece, welded steel design with a single, rolled steel tube and repositioned a new, concave guide wheel assembly on the ring. Now, the movement around the wrapping ring is even smoother and quieter. As an added bonus, it’s quicker to build so we can deliver our stretch wrapper machines up to two days faster.
But it’s not only about what’s inside the machine that counts. From a look at the outside, it was clear to everyone who packed our booth at the trade show that we’ve upgraded the overall look and feel. After more than a decade with the same paint, our new machine guarding is now powder coated in a textured, wrinkle gray finish. It better resists scratches and scuffs and hides any dust and fingerprints. We work in busy, industrial facilities but there’s no reason our work environment can’t look as clean and professional as our wrapped pallet loads.
Easy Machinery Maintenance
It’s also important to keep the machine working like new, not just looking like new. Several attendees at the booth mentioned they were having trouble keeping technical staff on board and that was making routine maintenance even less routine. We get it. We introduced new preventative maintenance kits that pre-package the exact OEM replacement wear parts and assemblies in one, convenient box. Any kits we brought to the show were spoken for before we left. We keep them in stock in Reading, Pennsylvania for immediate delivery but it’s good to keep them in your building just in case.
Packaging Automation in Metalworking
These new product introductions were shown installed on our Smart Controls TAB Wrapper Tornado and after skipping a couple of FABTECH shows, it was almost startling to experience the intense interest in this automated orbital wrapper compared to our base model, which, ironically, still offers a far greater level of automation than the manual stretch wrapping some of these people were trying to replace. In fact, there were a number of people who said they were planning to purchase the base model until they saw the Smart Controls demonstration in live action and realized that this is the future of packaging automation in metalworking. Then, with the show discount, bringing Industry 4.0 into the present was an even easier decision.
FABTECH 2024
We’re planning to introduce even more innovations at our FABTECH EXPO 2024 booth in Orlando at the Orange County Convention Center. We look forward to seeing you at the TAB Industries booth with our newest TAB Wrapper Tornado orbital wrapper.
See the Smart Controls orbital wrapping machine here.