To strip the cables, production operators used a homemade hot knife. "It was, however, a spooky process," says Kip Landry, process and equipment engineer. The hot knife was not a repeatable device, so most of the critical end results corresponded to the operator's knowledge and technique. The homemade hot knife was able to produce a prototype or sample, but it was unsuccessful when dealing with large production orders. These large orders put the company in a challenging predicament, especially when the company had a large order on standby. The company needed to make a decision about the way that it was stripping cable.

The large order that the company had acquired caused a great deal of concern regarding volume, consistency, operational costs and on-time delivery. Thus, the decision was made to purchase Schleuniger Inc.'s (Manchester, NH) JacketStrip 8400.

The product can perform full strips up to 8 inches long on round cable with a maximum outer diameter of 1 inch. It can also perform partial and window strips and is built with four rotary blades that prolong their initial cutting life. This feature, combined with pneumatic clamping jaws, holds the cable firmly in position. Additionally, stripping is performed at a rate of 5 ips.

After incorporating the JacketStrip 8400, productivity increased while maintaining precise and accurate results. Since the purchase of the wire stripper, the company's overall process has improved and production has run smoothly. According to Landry, "The JacketStrip 8400 greatly enhanced our manufacturing processes regarding some of our larger cable products. It has the ability to achieve precise, repeatable, reli-able strips, along with the power to remove large slugs with accuracy on difficult cable products and jacket materials. The production employees are pleased with its setup and operation. We have already obtained our return on investment."

For more information on wire stripping, call Schleuniger Inc. at 603-668-8117, visit www.schleuniger.com or Reply 1.