Industrial Location Tethering – ILT: A cost saver for broken cables

Though this may seem like a no-brainer, it doesn’t take long before a broken or pulled cable requires a replacement. The cost: upwards of $1,500. When a global customer came to Atlas Copco looking for a cost-saving solution to this exact issue, the solution ended up being fairly straightforward. 

Here, we’ll take a look at how Industrial Location Tethering – ILT, one of Atlas Copco’s Industrial Location platforms, was implemented in order to solve the issue of broken cables and save the plant thousands of dollars. Read on for the details!

Our customer, an automotive manufacturer, was having major cable management problems. In the plant, up to two cables per week were being broken. In their most critical station, they were dealing with a broken cable just about every month. One of the main reasons for these cable breakages and subsequent replacements were due to operators attempting to work ahead of schedule, pulling on the cables until they break. 

Atlas Copco knew fairly quickly that Industrial Location Tethering – ILT, consisting of a base station and a tool tag, would be the answer to this customer’s cable issues. Serving as a sort of virtual cable, Industrial Location Tethering – ILT tethers to a specific workstation and ensures that a connected cabled or battery tool can only be used within its permitted work zone. Should an operator bring the connected tool outside of its work zone, the tool is disabled. Using a wireless distance measurement technology, this system monitors the distance between the base station and the tool tag. 

Upon implementation of Industrial Location Tethering – ILT, results in the customer’s plant were immediate. The customer was able to substantially reduce the amount of broken or pulled cables in the plant, which allowed for thousands of dollars in cost-savings. Due to the system’s continuous tool orientation detection, tightenings can only be performed in pre-programmed, permitted workstations, ensuring that operators are no longer able to work ahead of schedule or outside of the tool’s working range. 

A simple system with major advantages, Industrial Location Tethering – ILT allows for lean manufacturing, error-proofing, and less down-time in production. Are you interested in learning more about what Industrial Location Tethering can do for your plant? Contact us and schedule a demo today!