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the days when body hair was
hacked at with a sharpened piece of
flint or plucked with two shells are
long past, thank goodness. modern
shaving devices have about as little
in common with these tools as they
do with the razor blades our grandfathers
thought were the greatest
thing ever to happen to shaving.
Yet, with each new generation of
wet razors, the challenge is still to
improve the quality of the shave.
One of the innovators in this field is
Wilkinson Sword.
manufacturing a shaving device
is by no means a trivial undertaking.
the design and manufacture
of a wet razor is a complex technical
process with absolute precision
down to the micrometer. New materials,
blades thinner than a hair
and the ability of the user to notice
the smallest deviation in quality or
alignment of the blades are some of
the reasons Wilkinson places such
high demands on the assembly
lines that produce the razors.
100% quality
Wilkinson Sword pursues vertically
integrated production, which
makes it easier to protect their
intellectual property and provide
seamless quality control. All of the
component parts of the wet razors
are produced on-site in Solingen, in
part on assembly lines the company
has designed itself. the plastic components
for the various shavers, for
example, are made with in-house
injection molding equipment. The
blades are also hardened, sharpened,
treated and coated by Wilkinson.
Video and image monitoring
applications observe and control
the vital production steps, and ensure,
for example, that each and
every blade is perfectly positioned
in the head of the razor.
In the past, these complex computational
tasks were handled by various
computer systems, including
some standard desktop pCs and
some that were sold as industrial
pCs. In practice, however, these devices
proved to be less robust than
Wilkinson required, and had no
long-term guarantee for the availability
of the devices and replacement
parts.
About the APC620
Title Story
With five different housing designs and scalable processor performance,
the ApC620 can be optimally adapted to any application. the solid construction
without internal cable connectors ensures a high level of reliability
- even in harsh production environments - around the clock seven
days a week.
■ Dual Independent Display operation
with up to eight panels for optimum
operating convenience
■ Smart Display Link for simple cabling
of the panels
■ Integrated upS for safely shutting
down the operating system
APC620: Long-term availability
and operational reliability
Wilkinson was therefore on the
search for an alternative to phaseout
the existing computers and solve
these problems. In the course of initial
talks with B&R, they came across
the ApC620 industrial pC. they were
equally impressed with the guaranteed
long-term availability and sup-
■ CompactFlash cards approved for
industrial environments store data
without rotating media
■ Slide-in drives offer flexible implementation
of CD and DVD drives
■ each pC is subject to an extensive
fitness test before it is delivered
ply of replacement parts, as well as
the quality and production philosophy
of the Austrian automation specialists,
and the concept and design
of the B&R devices.
Nevertheless, there remained doubts
at Wilkinson as to whether the 1.8
gHz processor would provide a
sufficient performance for the >>
automotion 07/2009
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