Röchling LERIPA Papertech GmbH & Co. KG, headquartered in Öpping, Upper Austria, is the leading manufacturer and processor of plastics. They focus on producing high-quality wear parts for paper machines, general engineering and plant engineering as well as agricultural engineering.
The wear parts for paper machines include 20 meter long ledges, which are used for the separation of the water from the wood fibre. These ledges consist of several small ceramic segments, which need to be glued together very carefully, in order that the segments’ surfaces are getting honed. This is done to get flat and parallel segment surfaces.
For the purpose of the exactness the company’s machine, the “Automatic Fixing Machine”, is used. With the help of this machine the ceramic segments are put into an appliance (= rotating clamping device for ceramic segments) and are getting clamped in it. Due to the different shapes and lengths of the ceramic segments it was demanding to find a uniform concept for this task. According to this our field of duties has been limited. Therefore, our task was to develop a machine, which makes it possible to clamp and unclamp 32 different ceramic segments in the appliance already mentioned before. The invention of this machine would be a great enrichment for the blue-collar workers, as this whole process still has to be done by hand.