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July 20, 2005
The Web Handling Research Center @ Oklahoma State University
Filed under: General Business Topics --- Tim Walker @ 08:27 AM
Not everybody in the "Converting" industry knows what "Web Handling" is. Even less know what about the WHRC, the Web Handling Research Center at Oklahoma State University.
The WHRC was founded in 1987 as part of a National Science Foundation program that created many UICRCs (University-Industry Cooperative Research Centers). [So it meets the government standard for acronyms...WHRC, a NSP UICRC.] UICRC were started under Pres. Reagan in an effort to increase university research, especially in engineering, applied to industry needs. Now, almost 20 years later, the WHRC is an exemplary example of of what the UICRCs were meant to do.
For more info on the WHRC, try:
www.engext.okstate.edu/info/WWW-WHRC.htm
I am extremely thankful for the many years that I attended the WHRC semi-annual review meetings as 3M's representative to the WHRC Industrial Advisory Board. Now that I'm not involved with a WHRC corporate sponsor, I still enjoy learning about their advances in web handling technology (and other advances worldwide) at the IWEB (Int'l Conf on Web Handling) that they host every odd-numbered year.
What has the web handling world gained from the WHRC?
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July 08, 2005
Registration to Pre-Printed Webs
Filed under: Coating, Laminating, and Printing --- Tim Walker @ 02:00 PM
What's the difference between registering a new patterned feature (print, die cut, laminate) to an upstream integrated pattern vs. registering to a pre-patterned web?
How about putting it another way? If you have a choice of developing a new Excel spreadsheet (or other computer program) or modifying a spreadsheet someone else has written, which is easier?
It is almost always harder to work on something that someone else has started. It was hundreds of years between the beginning of manufacturing processes to the creation of the assembly line. Having to modify someone else's work requires an initial step of figuring out where they left off. When you do a job yourself, you know what's been done (unless you put it on the shelf for too long, then it's like starting over).
Let's get back to registration.
Whenever possible, always integrate multiple printing, die cutting, and laminating steps in a single process. It may seem that creating a complex integrated process will lead to more waste (it often does), but in the case of registration, a great deal of startup and process variation waste is actually reduced by integration.
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