1. Franco Pezza
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“Evolving technologies are continuously
changing the industry. For those who adapt,
the payoff is greater flexibility, improved
reliability, faster changeover, less downtime,
and much more ...”
(Inauguration of the Technical Industrial Institute “Montani”, 1854, Fermo, AP, Italy)
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2. Index Table
Mission Statement 3
My Viewpoint 4
• regarding Blueprints
• regarding Engineering
• regarding Technologies
• regarding Manuals
• regarding Presentations
Projects 5
• Horizontal Indexer Adhesive Dispenser
• Paper Bag Machine
• Cartesian Robot
• High-security Lock-set
• Constant Tension De-coiler
• Air over Oil Press
• Other Projects and Patents
Contact Info 10
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3. Mission Statement
Make a difference
Encourage innovation
Continue to learn and improve
Build trust and respect
Be ethical and responsible
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4. My Viewpoint
According to the mission statement, my viewpoint regarding some of the important
steps in engineering and design are:
regarding Blueprints:
Drawings of details, assemblies, manuals and exploded views using 3-D software such as
Inventor, Solidworks and others, can reduce time and improve quality of the final
product.
regarding Engineering:
Ergonomic analysis, 3-D animation for debugging and presentations, FEA analysis and
interference checking are some features adopted during all the phases of the design and
development.
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5. regarding Technologies:
State of the art technologies, such as
digital servo motion control, network
field bus and integrated controls, can
enable several benefits, such as reduced
machine delivery time, faster installation
time, faster changeover, less downtime,
increased reliability, greater
productivity, greater flexibility,
increased quality, and high performance
data acquisition and feedback. Servo motion control eliminates mechanical drive shafts,
linkages, pulleys, chains and gears, reducing design, assembly and maintenance time.
regarding Manuals
A manual is considered an integrant part of a machine. Installation, set-up, spare parts
catalog, maintenance, trouble-shooting and other important information cannot be
neglected in a total quality context.
regarding Presentations:
The presentations done using 3-D rendering,
applying features such as material finishing,
transparency, lighting and animations, create
great opportunities to see, in the early stage of
the projects, the final products, creating
confidence in the results. The animation can
simulate the real behavior of the prototypes,
allowing the customers and the manufacturers
to take advantage of drastic reduced rework in
the final testing stages, and therefore to improve efficiency and quality.
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6. Projects
Some examples of the projects in which I have been involved are the following:
Horizontal Indexer Adhesive Dispenser
This machine dispenses adhesive on a coreless media
filter cartridge. A four-station horizontal indexer drum,
after the semi-automatic loading station, presents the
filter into the dispensing station. While the filter rotates,
the adhesive is dispensed, and from the main panel it is
possible to control both the speed of rotation of the filter
and the speed of translation of the adhesive head. The
third station is the U.V. station. The filter is exposed,
while rotating with another adjustable speed motor, to
an ultra violet light source, which cures the adhesive in
few seconds, A high volume blower keeps the
temperature of the station under control, while a fully
enclosed chamber provides protection for the operators
against direct UV light radiations. To achieve that protection, while ensuring a good air
flow, two enclosed pre-chambers were created before and after the UV station, and a v-
shaped grid was used for the air-inlet grid.
Paper Bag Machine
Working on this prototype to industrialize
the machine and improve it, was a great
experience. The main industrialization
process was to bring the cost of the
machine from $600,000 to $400,000. That
goal was reached the within one year
thanks mainly to a sale of 12 machines,
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7. which reduced the overhead cost and the costs of manufacturing parts. Other important
factor that helped to reach the goal was the fact that we were efficiently improving the
machine using feed backing and suggestions from our customers. The greatest challenge
was from our French customer; considering that the operator, to change the length of the
bag, had to change a gear in the traction rolls, the customer asked us to modify the
machine such that each gear for the bag length had
a number of teeth equal to the length in centimeters
of the bag produced. For example, a 45 teeth gear
had to produce a 45 cm long bag, and a 54 teeth
gear a 54 cm bag, and so on.
Keeping in mind that one cycle of the machine was
one complete revolution of the gear, the great
challenge was the fact that each tooth of “modulo”
3 (“modulo” is the European equivalent of pitch)
develop a length of 3π. Therefore, 3π is less than 1 cm, and the difference is 0.058 cm. In
fact, a 45 teeth, modulo 3 gear will produce a (45 x 3π) = 42.39 cm length bag and not a
45 cm one. In addition, the error is proportional to the number of teeth of the gear. For
example, a 90 teeth gear will produce an error double the error of a 45
teeth gear.
The problem was solved using, between the gear and the traction rolls,
the coaxial phasing unit in continuous correction mode. The idea was
to input the pashing unit with the rpm from the gear, to add the speed
necessary through the phasing shaft, and then to obtain an output rpm
from the phasing unit such that the desired bag length was obtained.
Cartesian Robot
The Wittmann Robots Company makes high-speed
Cartesian robots for the injection mold industry. The
integration of the robots with the injection mold presses,
and the design and development of the end-of-arm tools
were the main responsibilities. The use of pneumatic
grippers, the use of quick-change devices, the use of
crash-protection devices were used, therefore engineered
and developed keeping in mind the final critical weight
of the end-of-arm. The robots also were often
implemented with a forth or a fifth axis for further
manipulations and orientations. Other special operations
were also requested by the customer, such as the cut of
the spur on the molded part, some simple machining on the parts, or some assembly onto
other components. All these operations were usually done using the robot itself and his
flexibility as the fixture for the part to manufacture.
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8. High-Security Lock-Set
The participation into the design, the development
and the dimensioning of a high security lock sets
was the main task in which my rational and
analytical skills were tested. The target for this
product was to reach that niche in the market
where high-security, resistance to tampering,
resistance to drilling and high degree of mastering
were required, for a not electronic lock set system.
The research and development of a 15 pins lock
set, allowed the usage of a master key with
billions of combinations. It was the first in its
category that allowed such a mastering potential
in a mechanical lock set. Another achievement was to explain and adopt for the first time
in the company the so-called mushroom head pin in a lock set cylinder. This type of pin
allowed improving drastically the resistance to tampering.
Constant Tension De-coiler
One of the most critical parts of the belt is the tension cord,
because it is responsible for the endurance and the power
transmitted which the belt can support. Even a small variance
in the tension between the cords, will cause that the most
tensioned cord to be overloaded supporting all the traction
force of the belt, with the consequence of a premature failure of the cord. To ensure that
all the tension cords in the belt are equally contributing in the power transmission, they
have to be perfectly wrapped around at the same constant tension over the still soft rubber
belt. This machine was designed to wrap the tension
cord around, over a pre-vulcanized rubber belt core,
and to achieve that goal, all the components which
were involved in handling and the cord and
controlling the tension, such as the spool holder, the
traction rollers, the idle rollers and the bearings, had
to be designed for low inertia, low weight, low
friction and high speed characteristics. A load cell was also applied to one of the idle
roller to detect the actual tension, the tension variance, and to control its value. In fact,
the feedback from the load cell was used to control the traction rollers speed and
therefore the final tension of the cord on the rubber belt.
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9. Air over Oil Press
This 2 tons press was designed and released into production in
two weeks. The pneumatic pick-n-place unit loaded the two pre-
assembled parts on a heavy duty dove-tail pneumatic slide, which
presented the parts under the press station. At that point, the air
over oil cylinder was activated, and the parts assembled together.
The same pick-n-place was then responsible for unloading the
final product from the dove-tail slide into a chute. The pick-n-
place, the die, the extractor, the four posts press, the steel frame
and the safety guarding were all designed, detailed and released
for production (assembly drawings included) in a record time.
Other Projects and Patents
My experience also includes other projects and patents in which I was involved as a
designer:
• Fully automatic packaging machine for plastic bottles industry;
• Dial plate indexing machines (4-6-8-12 stations) for assembling, inspection and
testing;
• High speed pick-n-place robotic arm for the molding industry;
• Assembly line for the washer machine welded frame;
• Work cell unit for pressure testing of oleo-dynamic flexible hoses;
• Several tooling and precision gages for automotive industries;
• Material handling equipments, feeders and orientation devices;
• Case Packaging machines (continuous and index motions), drop packers and wrap
around machines.
• Patent # US 8,545,349 Issued: Oct.1, 2013; Title: Broadhead arrowhead having
deployable blades.
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