ROUND-UP
the exibility and capability
to become high-performing
technicians by exploring
the integrated nature of
engineering.
www.is.gd/sekani
North Star has appointed Mathew
Gordon (pictured above) as its new
chief executive o cer. Gordon, who has
held senior positions in Unique Group,
Atlantic O shore, Viking Seatech and
Subsea 7, will take over the position
this month from Callum Bruce, who
is stepping down after 34 years in the
business. www.is.gd/uhurud
AMETEK Land’s She eld infrared
temperature calibration laboratory
is celebrating its 50th anniversary. In
1970, the laboratory in She eld was
the rst in the UK to be accredited by
the then British Calibration Service
(BCS), now the United Kingdom
Accreditation Service (UKAS), for the
issue of calibration certi cates for noncontact
nonwww.
thermometry. To date, it has
issued over 22,000 certi cates. It now
calibrates in accordance with ISO/IEC
standard 17025:2017. www.is.gd/fucuze
Panasonic Heating & Cooling
Solutions has invested in a
central software support
solution for products,
IFS Remote Assistance.
This allows Panasonic to
remotely diagnose issues,
ensure real-time knowledge
sharing, and signi cantly speed up
repair rates, according to the company.
When a customer contacts the service
department, service sessions can be
initiated immediately. www.is.gd/qilaja
Northumbria University partners on EU
housing energy e ciency project
Northumbria University has been chosen to
participate in a €4.8 million project to tackle
the issue of renovating residential buildings
in Europe to make them more energy
e cient. According to the university, more
than three-quarters of European residential buildings were constructed before
1990, with many thermal ine cient and poor quality, while hot and cold extremes
can leave residents in energy poverty.
The EU-funded RINNO project has been devised to nd new ways to reduce
the costs, timescales and disturbance involved in ‘deep renovation’ and triple the
current rate of such renovations in Europe. Over the next four years, the RINNO
project will look to develop new ways to make it easier to increase a building’s
energy e ciency, environmental performance and occupant satisfaction. It will
investigate novel technologies, processing and business models, to develop
solutions to enable the construction industry to make signi cant improvements
to energy ine cient buildings around Europe. www.is.gd/idumof
...brie ngs
Robots support pastry operation
When Italian pastry manufacturer
Sfoglia Torino identi ed a need to
speed up production of vol-au-vent
cases, it began discussions with
system integrator and automation
specialist Tiesse.
The bakery wanted a robotic
solution to speed up the packaging of
three di erent sizes of vol-au-vents
(38mm, 50mm and 60mm) direct from
a conveyor into thermoformed blister
packs. As the vol-au-vent cases leave
the ovens, they are transported on
a wire mesh conveyor into a cooling
chamber before going on to be
packaged for dispatch.
To assure accurate product
positioning in preparation
for the robotic lifting and
packaging stages to follow,
the Tiesse team needed to
ensure that a recognition
and alignment process was in
place from the point at which
the products entered the
ovens in the rst place.
Then the focus turned to the design
of the packaging procedures as the
products emerged from the other end
of the baking and cooling line. The
packaging station downstream of the
cooling section is now essentially a
cabin housing the conveyor and four
new Kawasaki YF-03N Delta robots.
Each robot is equipped with vacuum
gripping devices that lift the individual
vol-au-vent cases three at a time
with what is described as ‘precision
and speed’. A vision system provided
by Tiesse partner TS Vision also
monitors the positioning for pickup
and placement into the adjacent
blister packs.
More info: www.is.gd/mawuna
14 www.operationsengineer.org.uk Autumn 2020
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