Adwaith Lakshmi Industries Ltd. from the house of Adwaitham-Coimbatore has introduced a new concept and application in the Indian textile spinning industry – the E-Spin Patrol Bike – for spinning mill ring frame siders for piecing (joining) broken yarn application.
The main concerns among spinning mill ring frame siders today are high fatigue, repetitive work and higher attrition rate. These were considered before introducing this new concept of using E-Spin Patrol Bike for siders in spinning mills that leads to ease of operation and also other immediate monetary gains in operation.
Indian textiles is one of the oldest and largest sectors and the backbone of the economy providing huge employment opportunities to the rural and urban population.
The spinning segment plays a very vital role in the textile industry. It has a sequence of processes to convert raw cotton into quality yarn. This spinning process should run continuously without break to increase the output of yarn produced from every spindle. More stoppage due to yarn breakage while spinning causes yield reduction and production loss.
To avoid or minimize production loss, normally a spinning machine operator (sider) is responsible (2 sides per operator called sider) for piecing (joining) of broken yarn immediately as soon as it is noticed.
To improve the efficiency of the spinning operator (sider) and increase output, Adwaith Lakshmi Industries has formulated the concept of E Bike through a detailed study of the complete requirement of siders, viz., the mode of piecing the broken yarn, in between distance of ring frame in textile mills, the height of spindles to be attended and other details.
- The work nature of a sider is to patrol by walk among the sides of ring frame machines to observe the yarn break status of spindle and attend to the same.
- In a normal day of 8 hrs shift, the siders have to walk around 12 to 15 km and burn 860 units of calorie.
- This walk of 12 to 15 km during an 8-hour shift leads to more fatigue and monotonous nature of job which leads to lack of interest and absenteism, especially in the ring frame section of textile mills.
- The scarcity / unavailability of skilled operators (siders) for piecing of broken yarn is a major concern for textile mills.
The company Managing Director had envisioned these problems faced by siders and successfully conceptualized the idea of E Bike. He led the team to successfully develop the E bike meant for siders to attend to piecing of broken yarn, apart from enabling them to handle other related work in the spinning section.
E-Spin Patrol Bike
According to real time data on hand, the company developed and tested its E-Spin Patrol Bike – Standard and Plus variant for the spinning mill Ring Frame siders. The major benefit and purpose of this E-BIKE to siders is to attend piecing of broken yarn without much fatigue and in a more interesting way.
This vehicle is being completely manufactured by the company (some parts being imported) and run by front wheel hub DC motor drive / battery-operated features, designed to be very compact so that it could be run in between ring frame machines.
The team made prototypes of E-Spin Patrol Bike, conducted extensive trials at various mills with the siders. The results and feedback have been incorporated during various iterations in the process of developing the E Bike.
The other benefits provided to siders include:
- Operator walking is completely eliminated
- Reaching the location of yarn break without effort and also on time.
- Attending to piecing of broken yarn in ring frame made faster.
- The fatigue level of operator is completely eliminated.
- Productivity increased by reducing stoppage time for want of operator to attend the yarn piecing.
- Good cost saving in terms of labor and pneumafil waste reduction.
E- Bike Plus
The E-Bike plus variant has an advantage of synchronizing with the textile mills’ Spindle Monitoring System. The available output data is synchronized with the tablet computer device handled by siders, thereby providing the opportunity to siders to take the quicker route to attend to yarn breakages.
This E Bike is also fitted with a music system to provide entertainment to siders.
The company has set up its own manufacturing and assembly testing facility at its factory and the team is also equipped with adequate training in terms of operation and maintenance of vehicle, aftersales support, etc.