Textile Machine Workstation Parallel Piecing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Textile machines experience significant unproductive downtimes due to limited energy resources, leading to long waiting times for energy-intensive processes like thread attachment, as only a few workstations can be supplied with energy simultaneously.
Innovation Solution
Implementing individually driven working elements and positioning drives that allow for a home position movement to be carried out independently of other sub-steps, enabling decoupling of the basic position movement from the main attachment process, allowing for parallel execution of initial position movements and fiber beard preparation across workstations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If energy resources are allocated to multiple workstations simultaneously for piecing processes, then productivity increases, but energy resources are exceeded
Solution Approach 1:
The piecing process is divided into multiple sub-steps (thread end detection, thread end grasping, thread end positioning, piecing execution) that can be executed independently. Energy resources are allocated to specific sub-steps rather than the entire piecing process, allowing multiple workstations to perform different sub-steps simultaneously within available energy constraints.
Solution Approach 2:
Low-energy preparatory sub-steps such as thread end detection and positioning are executed in advance before the high-energy piecing execution. This allows workstations to advance the piecing process to intermediate stages using minimal energy, reducing waiting times while maintaining overall energy budget constraints.
2Use of energy by moving object
If piecing processes are executed sequentially at workstations, then energy resources are within limits, but loss of time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The piecing process is segmented into independent sub-steps that can be executed in parallel across multiple workstations. Each workstation progresses through different sub-steps simultaneously, transforming sequential execution into a pipelined parallel execution model that reduces overall cycle time while maintaining energy constraints.
Solution Approach 2:
Workstations continuously perform useful sub-steps without idle waiting. While one workstation executes the high-energy piecing execution, another performs thread end detection, and a third performs positioning, ensuring that all workstations are continuously productive within available energy resources.
3Productivity
If individually driven working elements with positioning drives are implemented, then productivity increases through parallel execution, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The positioning drive and working elements are designed as universal, modular components that can perform multiple functions across different sub-steps (detection, grasping, positioning, execution). This standardized multi-functional design reduces overall system complexity despite enabling parallel operations at multiple workstations.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
AI summary
In a method for attaching a thread (12) at a work station (2) of a textile machine (1), several partial steps are performed sequentially at the work station (2) to carry out the attachment process, with at least one partial step being performed independently of the other partial steps. The work station (2) has at least one individually driven working element (3) and at least one positioning drive (22) for the at least one working element (3), and the at least one independently performed partial step includes a home position movement of the at least one positioning drive (22). In a corresponding textile machine (1) with a plurality of such work stations (2) arranged side by side on at least one longitudinal side of the textile machine (1) and with at least one control unit (13), the control unit (13) is designed to operate the textile machine (1) according to the method.