Finishing lab systems

[Amberakvc]

Hi! I manage a lab that finishes about 4000 jobs per month. We have 6 edgers, but 4 of them are probably not long for this world. I recently purchased 2 Coburn Excelons, and had been planning on outfitting the rest of the lab with this equipment as we continue to add locations. Now, I;m not so sure..I have had several problems with the motors burning out in under 8 months. We generally cut poly all day long. I have looked into the Optronics 7e dry edger and it seems like a good machine for poly, except that I have heard the blades run out much sooner than advertised.
I would like to streamline everything, all the same equipment and use a lab software to enhance efficiency. Does anyone have any suggestions, or past experience that they would like to share with me? I would greatly appreciate any thoughts. Thanks!

[scriptfiller]

If you go with the 7e, based on your production numbers, you would have to change-out blades every other day if you were to use carbides. Blades run about $10/pc. You would probably have to change-out vacuum bags every 2-3 days.

[Amberakvc]

Even if that workload is spread between 4-6 machines? Thanks for your help

[scriptfiller]

Got lost a little in the math. So, 4K jobs per month on a 22 day work month equates to ~182 jobs/day. That's 45.5 jobs per edger per day using 4 and only 30.3 jobs per edger per day using 6. Light duty numbers, IMHO 10 jobs per hour is a good rate for a 7e assuming no drilling is being done. You should get about a week to 10 days life on blades and 1-2 times a week changing vacuum bags. A single tracer interfaced with a PC networked to your edgers running, say Visual Lab, should work just fine.

A question, how many people do you have running your finish lab?

[GokhanSF]

First if you are running 4,000 jobs a month you should look into getting a surfacing equipment. On the LMS side I recommend CC Systems.