As the industry’s older, highly experienced operators continue to retire, a new generation is being ushered in. These newer, younger workers are showing up to the job with hopeful expectations about the equipment they’ll be working with. They want it to be modern and easy to use, like the technology they grew up with. They don’t want to have to fight a machine to make it work. If it’s confusing to use, their patience will wear thin. To retain these new hires, the operator experience needs to be a major focus.
That’s why the bulk of today’s industrial controls are becoming increasingly user-friendly. At Wintriss Controls Group LLC, a maker of press automation, die protection and safety controls for the metal stamping industry, the user is front and center during product R&D. But the team at Wintriss isn’t just focused on delivering for the next generation of workers; while modernizing their products, they ensure they’re still familiar to the veterans of the industry that have been using them for decades.
Help is on the way
Wintriss has always focused its efforts on producing user-friendly interfaces – controls have been the company’s bread and butter since not long after its founding in the 1940s. Throughout the years, operator ease of use and efficiency have been top priorities, which led to its latest press controller, the SmartPac Pro.
“The highest turnover is probably at the press operator level, so the easier the equipment is to use, the shorter the training time,” says Jim Finnerty, product manager at Wintriss. “Knowing that, we have always strived to produce controls that are easy to navigate and use, and that’s especially apparent with the SmartPac Pro.
“We embrace the latest advancements, such as the touchscreen control, but we also try to make our new releases familiar,” he adds. “If we transported somebody from 1994 to today that had experience with the SmartPac 1, they’d be able to program the SmartPac Pro with no issues.”
When veteran Wintriss users get started with the SmartPac Pro, they’ll notice that most of the menu locations have stayed the same. Finnerty says that’s something the company intentionally does – in part based on the business they do replacing older controls, but also to keep the platform familiar and easy to use.
“We also included a help button on every screen that’s context-sensitive,” Finnerty explains. “The help menu covers everything the operator is seeing on that screen, and it’s pulled right out of the user manual. Instead of wondering what they’re supposed to do next, they can just press the help button, and the appropriate help options pop up.”
Taking control
Through the SmartPac Pro’s touchscreen interface, operators can easily access videos, setup sheets, PDFs, drawings, photos and other information to make their jobs easier. In terms of setting up a new job, the control allows unlimited storage for all the different dies and jobs that the operator might be working with.
Integration with ancillary equipment, such as servo feeds, lubrication systems and automation, is also easy and is accomplished through the control, bringing all the various press components into one single interface.
“No one wants to have multiple user interfaces on a press,” Finnerty says. “If there’s a user interface for the lube system, the feeder, the die protection and the clutch brake control, it becomes a nightmare. It can be very complicated to learn how to use a press like that.
“On the other hand, if everything’s in one location – all of the errors are coming up in one place and there’s only one screen to work with – it makes it an awful lot easier,” he adds. “We spent a great deal of time recently and through the years working with other equipment suppliers, including servo feed and lubrication system companies, to create easy integrations. It’s become as easy as plugging an Ethernet or serial cable into the control, and you’re ready to go.”
The SmartPac Pro also offers extensive customization and networking capabilities, with free web-based monitoring via SmartView Pro. With SmartView Pro, operators and shop floor managers can monitor a press’s status, production counts, tonnage and other information in real time, from anywhere.
“The SmartView Pro is kind of cool and super easy to set up,” Finnerty says. “It’s free and comes with the SmartPac Pro. To unlock its features, it needs to be plugged into the network and then, on a tablet or a phone or anything with a web browser, users just enter the IP address and name of the press. When you specify the IP address and name, all the data automatically comes up from the press, merges onto the user’s screen and is displayed.”
In addition to monitoring the press’s activity, operators can also send messages through SmartView Pro to a variety of recipients that include screenshots. One of the recipients that’s hard coded into the system is Wintriss tech support. If a customer sends a message to tech support, they can automatically send over their error and event logs, which helps tech support start troubleshooting right away.
Wintriss’s optional remote administrator, called Radmin, can also help new users as it allows for remote programming and troubleshooting. From a desktop computer or laptop, a manager or senior staff member can remotely program the SmartPac Pro on the shop floor. This can be incredibly helpful if the subject matter expert isn’t on-site or nearby.
“Radmin allows them to walk an operator through the setup steps even if they aren’t right there at the press,” Finnerty explains. “For the operator at the press, it looks like there’s a ghost in the machine. They see the menu choices, the buttons that are pressed and all of that, so that they’ll be able to do it on their own the next time.”
Tackling big tasks
When George Wintriss first founded the company, he named it Wintriss Mfg. and focused on the production of machinery and metal stampings. He changed the name, however, to Wintriss Controls after he applied for a patent for the first die protection system. The patent, which included early drawings of the sensors on which Wintriss would later forge its reputation, dramatically changed the way the company helped stampers moving forward.
To this day, stampers across the globe take advantage of sensors to monitor their operations, protect their dies and keep production flowing. As an example, think of a stamping line where the first four stations are cutting and piercing, and the final four stations are forming and bending. When a hole is pierced in the material and the punch lifts out of the strip, it can pull out the slug with it.
“That slug can land on top of the part where it gets squashed under the stripper plate,” Finnerty says. “Worst case scenario, you can get a die crash. Best case, you get a part that’s going to fail QC because of cosmetics. A proximity sensor can detect if the stripper doesn’t come down all the way at bottom dead center and stop the machine.”
But that, of course, means that the sensor needs to be there beforehand. Finnerty says that this, too, is an area where the company has tried to simplify things.
“We released several new features for die protection with the new SmartPac Pro,” he says. “If somebody doesn’t do a perfect job installing a sensor, we’ve developed ways to work around that while still protecting the dies. As an example, if certain static sensors aren’t properly installed, they can be prone to false actuations. So, we added a ‘bypass angle’ to allow the SmartPac to ignore the sensor during non-critical parts of the cycle.”
Whether it’s installing sensors, programming new jobs or even getting started with a complex setup, Wintriss feels a responsibility to make those tasks as easy as possible for its customers. Through the company’s Custom Controls Design Service, customers can get help setting up their press control systems. From simple to complex, Wintriss can build a complete, integrated, turnkey control package, whether it’s updating a press with a new clutch/brake control, adding integrated automation or replacing the entire electrical package, help is available.
“Overall, we want to help customers avoid equipment failures and keep their operators happy,” Finnerty concludes. “We’re just trying to make the whole experience better for them. Even though press controls are more complex now than they probably ever were, we’ve made them easier to use.”
