Case study: Heathcoat Fabrics

The problem: Too much labour and solvent use for analysis

The result: Efficiencies in terms of reduced labour and costs

The company designs, develops, tests and delivers a wide variety of fabrics for a range of markets including automotive, aerospace, military and healthcare. Adoption of their spin finish analyser has had two clear operational advantages:

• Increased efficiency in the way their department works based around less time being spent on getting results and being able to focus on other areas;
• The cost reduction in terms of not using any solvents.

Case study: Recycled fibre manufacturer

The problem: Measuring 5 samples per day limited process control.

The result: Measuring 100+ samples per day accelerated process control.

This user previously used ‘wash’ with a surfactant and chelating agent to determine spin finish but were limited to measuring 5 samples per day. Initially, they tried to calibrate their spin finish analyser using 10 samples measured by an independent laboratory. However, they found that a more accurate and repeatable calibration could be obtained by dropping known masses of oil onto fibre samples. They are now able to measure 100+ samples per day on each of their two instruments as well as carry out Design of Experiments studies. More frequent measurements enable better process control however for 20% of the time they use the instrument for product development.

Case study: Medical fabric manufacturer

The problem: Bottleneck in their process

The result: Faster product development and subsequently quality control

This user purchases polyester fibre which they need to check the spin finish content prior to weaving their prosthetic ligament product. Finish removal is then critical to its end use as a surgical implant; bandages and other medical fabrics have similar requirements. They reached a point in their product development where they were overwhelmed with samples which they were trying to measure by solvent extraction. Their MQC spin finish analyser provided a fast, accurate measurement to remove this bottleneck in their process and quality control.

Case study: Carpet manufacturer

The problem: Operator variability and process control limited by infrequent measurements.

The result: Fast, easy-to-use and accurate spin finish measurements

This user was monitoring 12 lines to ensure they met the spin finish specification. Prior to acquiring the spin finish analyser they measured spin finish by alcohol extraction. This severely limited the number of measurements that they could carry out for process control, and they found that the accuracy varied depending on which technician was carrying out the extraction measurements. They found the calibration process and instructions easy to follow and use one calibration for most of their measurements. They now use their spin finish analyser 24/7 measuring 140-160 samples each day over two shifts.

Case study: Aramid fibre manufacturer

The problem: Monitoring multiple lines to a tight specification

The result: Almost continuous monitoring with minimal manual input

This user measures 100s of samples taken from multiple lines 24/7. Their Laboratory Information Management system (LIMS) creates a run list of samples, including calibrations, to set-up the autosampler queue. Their MQC+ spin finish analysers with MQ-Auto automated sample changer runs the samples in order however the robot may be paused to add further batches. Their LIMS automatically picks up the results and feeds this data into their quality system for their high-performance product.