Shuttleworth’s Slip-Torque® conveyor has helped Wallace insure that the printed and bound product they deliver to their customers arrives in the best possible condition. “On some conveyor systems,” says Dan Firlit, plant manager of Wallace’s facility in Hillside, IL, “marks will appear on the covers of the final product, this is due to the type of roller systems being used such as a stop and drag type system. We have found that using Shuttleworth’s new and improved system has allowed us to give our customers a final product of highest quality.” Shuttleworth has done work for Wallace over the years, supplying standard in-feed conveyors, but one day Shuttleworth’s regional sales manager Kevin Karst picked up the phone and heard his contact at Wallace say that they had a large project for which he thought Shuttleworth would be the perfect partner in the solution to Wallace’s problem. Karst understood that preventing “marks” on the back of the books was critical. “That was the main consideration – they needed to handle these books without damage,” he said. “The end product was a high-quality directory that would go to customers and the books needed to look their best and be of the highest quality. In addition, due to the various packaging and mailing systems, an even work flow was very important.” The Shuttleworth team designed a system so Wallace could have it’s cake and eat it too. This system could transfer and accumulate as many as 200 bound catalogs prior to being sent to one of three finishing and mailing lines. One possible destination was an automated bulk palletization machine where catalogs are cased or put on pallets. If casebinding was needed for the catalog, the product would head for a specialized binder. If bookfolding was required the same conveyors would lead the catalogs to that specialized equipment. In fact, Shuttleworth sent the in-feed conveyor to a nationally acclaimed manufacturer to integrate the Shuttleworth System into the development and design of Wallace’s packaging machinery. “It was important that we had the flexibility to divide the system and give this outside manufacturer part of this conveyor system, so they would be comfortable with how we were going to feed into their packaging system,” Karst said. Keeping in mind, of course, the books had to stay free of any “conveyor marks”. That objective was met because the rollers underneath the product actually stop on the Shuttleworth System when the product stops to accumulate. This compares favorably with a belt system where the belt conveyor runs constantly underneath the product and can scuff or damage the final product. Even though the system was customized, it only took 120 days from initial discussion to final installation. The first step was a Wallace Engineer created drawings of the layouts of the new and existing equipment. There were space limitations and many problems that had to be solved, but together, Shuttleworth and Wallace came up with a system that made sense mechanically as well as reasonably priced. Wallace’s engineers requested a special feature to be included in the project – installation of a modem in the conveyor’s control panel. This allows automated control settings to be changed by Shuttleworth engineers dialing into Wallace and “making adjustments on the fly,” if needed. Shuttleworth’s experience of providing this benefit with past customers has proven very valuable for Wallace. Shuttleworth’s engineers installed and assembled the system on the shop floor of their headquarters in Huntington, IN and Wallace’s personnel went to Shuttleworth to test the new system before delivery. The Shuttleworth System has worked beautifully. Wallace’s Firlit says, “What we like about their system is that the uptime on the system is virtually 100 percent. We have very few breakdowns, if any. Since we’ve had the system, which is over a year now, we’ve only had to deal with very minor things. And we run the system very hard.” “The operators, the people who work on the equipment, are very pleased with the overall performance. What it really has done for us is improved efficiencies and decreased our downtime. And most importantly, improved overall quality of our final product, the catalog.”