Using incorrect dies for metal stamping operations can result in lost time and production as well as severe damage to the presses and a risk to human lives.
In recent years, there was a case where the use of the incorrect die caused catastrophic press damage resulting in significant downtime and, because the press was so large, it had to be cut up before it could be removed and replaced. These types of occurrences can prove disastrous to the survival of a company.
When not in use, dies are generally stored in specified storage areas. Often, the die is in the wrong place, and the crane operator needs to know what he/she is retrieving for the next process in the correct die.
To help ensure that these types of errors do not occur, some manufacturers use long-range UHF RFID technology. This can ensure that the correct dies are chosen when they are staged outside of a press. And with handheld devices, it can help the operator find the correct die in storage if it has been misplaced.
Since long-range UHF RFID technology allows the verification of the correct dies from as little as one foot away to as far as several meters, it can be used in both large and small stamping presses. The long-range allows the reader antennas to be placed in strategic locations where the correct readings will be possible but in positions where they will not be damaged by the operation of the press and dies.
I recently assisted with a metal stamping operation that first brought this idea to my attention. This manufacturer was having the problem of the wrong dies being staged for installation into the press. So far, none of the dies had made it past the staging area and into the press. Still, the possibility of that happening was clearly present, and they were experiencing lost production due to having to remove the incorrect die and find the correct one.
The manufacturer wanted to interlock the press so that if the incorrect dies were not in place, the machine would not be able to run. He also wanted to know ahead of time of a wrong die so that it could be replaced promptly to not impact production.
The solution we developed was to place multiple reader antennas at multiple staging locations at the press and interlock the RFID reads with the PLC that controlled the press.
Additionally, he incorporated handheld readers to help find misplaced dies in the storage area.
This solution required testing and tuning of the UHF RFID system to ensure that all die RFID tags were being read when the dies were staged. But once this was completed, it proved to work effectively and reduce the errors and downtime.
It should be noted that due to the physics of UHF RFID technology versus other types of RFID technology, implementing long-range UHF RFID systems in any application should be preceded by a feasibility study that tests the system in the real world environment of the plant.
