Finishing & Screen Printing

Browne updates two of its six Polar guillotines

Monday 14. January 2013 - Chemical Indicator Technology Specialists Albert Browne will take delivery of two latest generation Polar 78N Plus guillotines in the first quarter of this year.

The Leicester company is the largest Polar 78 user with six running continuously eight hours a day. Five years ago the company completed its switch from EBA to Polar technology and this time round Albert Browne looked at two options, closely comparing Polar with a rival manufacturer.
General manager Alan Charlton says: “We normally replace equipment every seven years but the guillotines have been so reliable and productive they have been kept on almost double that time. We use our guillotines intensively so they have to be robust; the performance of the Polars to date was convincing when we came to upgrade.”
The buying decision was based on research by production manager Stephen Brown who says: “These new generation Polar 78N Plus guillotines, equipped with air tables, will give us an extra 15% productivity due to the improved cycle time, cut to cut. It was that and the minimal amount of maintenance and repairs required on our previous Polar machines that provided the business case for sticking with Polar. Our operators look forward to using the new guillotines, featuring the latest 18.5 inch touchscreen technology and graphical programming automation.”
Both machines will operate with tungsten carbide knives because the company needs a robust cut as it switches regularly between newsprint and polypropylene laminates. The tungsten blades give a ten times improvement on knife life for these products over HSS blades.
The company, part of the Steris Group, uses thermochromic technology to produce sterilization monitoring indicator products which are used in hospital and dental environments mainly.