Graham Engineering Corporation (GEC) of York, PA, USA, has proudly accepted their third annual Innovator Award in 2008, from Control Design, a well recognised US publication. The honour was based on Graham's development of a new PC control system for its rotary wheel extrusion blow moulding machinery.
The new control system was developed as part of a system-wide upgrade of control technology over all their machinery platforms. The new control system has the ability to achieve more precise parison programming, which in the past has been done using a PLC system or DCS with a dedicated card. Graham's new controller enables a jump in precision that dramatically increases the quality of bottles being produced.
In addition, it enhances the temperature control and overall system control. The new PC control is called the XMB Navigator and is available on all its blow moulding machine lines (wheel, shuttle, shot pot / reciprocating screw and accumulator head)
The PC based system incorporates Graham's equipment manuals as a valuable added resource for customers - which can be accessed as cross linked PDFs offering helpful photos, schematics and parts lists.
GEC are a leading global supplier of plastic bottle extrusion blow moulding machinery encompassing a broad range of equipment including multi-layer barrier and large part production. Their rotary 'mega wheel' machine can produce up to 44,000 bottles per hour.
GEC is representedby HBM Plastics and Packaging Technology in Oceania.