Machines Run Faster, Smarter at Xylexpo.

More than 90,000 people attend the Milan fair.

FASTER OPERATING SPEEDS, greater flexibility and enhanced user-friendly digital controls were the key buzzwords at Europe's largest woodworking fair this year. Approximately 92,000 visitors attended Xylexpo, the biennial industrial woodworking show held May 24-28 in Milan, Italy.

Xylexpo offered a sneak preview of some of the hot innovations that will be on display at IWF 2000 in Atlanta next month.

According to the show's sponsor, ACIMALL, the Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machines and Equipment for the Processing of Wood, total attendance was up 8.4% over the 1998 show, and more than half of the visitors were from outside of Italy. A news release from ACIMALL declared, "This is a sign that the industry is picking up strongly."

'Smart' Panel Saw Grippers

Among the innovations at Xylexpo, destined for exhibition at IWF, was Giben's PM System of grippers, capable of positioning material automatically and independently along two axes.

Unlike traditional horizontal beam saws that have a pusher equipped with multiple grippers in fixed positions to accommodate complex cutting patterns, the PM System employs two types of optimized, self-positioning grippers. Each gripper moves independently along the width of the pusher (the "X" axis) and perpendicular to the width of the pusher (the "Y" axis). The "X" type gripper only moves along the width of the pusher. The "XX" type gripper moves along the width of the pusher as well as perpendicular to the pusher, and therefore automatically adjusts the positioning of a stack of panels or strips at a distance from the cut line different from the distance determined by the "X" type grippers.

These smart grippers are controlled entirely by the saw's computer. Their position is always optimized depending on the cutting pattern, size of the material, cut sequence and the size of the strips or parts.

Advantages of the PM System, according to Giben, include:

* Reduced equipment cost, increased efficiency and cutting pattern flexibility. In conventional sizing plants, as material sizes vary and patterns become complex, more grippers are required. With the PM System, only two "X" type grippers or a combination of two "X" type and one "XY" type can handle cutting patterns more efficiently than a conventional saw with its maximum allowable number of fixed grippers.

* PM System grippers always grab the panel material in the optimum location. Saws equipped with the PM System automatically adapt to any change in board size, cutting pattern and part sizes -- head cuts or not.

* Reduced material damage. Conventional saws can damage the edge of a stack of strips because the size of the strip and the position of the gripper are rarely synchronized for every job change. Edge damage has been completely eliminated by the PM System.

* Increased productivity. With the combination of "X" and "XY" type grippers, full stacks of panels in a staggered pattern can be crosscut in a single cycle as if it were a checkerboard pattern. A single-line saw can match outputs that were in the past only reserved for angular sizing plants. With "X" type grippers on the rip saw and "XX" grippers on the crosscut saw, angular plants also increase productivity over conventional angular plants.

Giben has entered the PM System for a Challengers Award.