Why KSM®: The Principles behind the Tools

Control of Costs

Most commonly measuring of cable cross sections is done today by manually operated shadow graphs or measuring microscope. Evaluations made both by ACM and our customer’s show that the variation in outcome is at least 4 - 5%, and in some cases even more. Considering the cost of material, which, according to our knowledge is up to 70% of the total cable cost, this will result in the substantial savings if you can measure with KSM having better than 99.9% repeat accuracy.

We recommend that you make a simple internal evaluation. You prepare a sample of any cable and:
  1. Allow a number of persons to measure the same sample under normal conditions, or
  2. Let one operator measure the same sample for 5 days.

After having summarized the measurements you have your own spread. Then you can calculate your own cost of variation using the following form; (Material costs Year 2000) x (your own variation) =? You probably reach the amounts that far exceed the value of your investment in THE KSM SYSTEM.

A rapid and exact supervision of material consumption. Repeatability better than 99,9%

Simplifying

It takes a lot of time until all technical data have been summarized by various departments into a protocol. Often too many days, so it is too late to do anything about it.

With the KSM-System you get the complete outcome within seconds presented directly to the extruder operator. The quality check is carried on and evaluated directly at the extrusion line. The extruder operator having the big responsibility for the production has done the quality check effectively.

Time- and Personal-cost savings. Multiple measurements made within seconds.

Usage

Of course KSM System with all its technical skills and functions can be considered as desired, but it will fail if the people operating it find it too complicated. Having this in mind we have designed and developed the first KSM-System, ten years ago, together with our first customer and his operators. This resulted in User-friendly and Self-explanatory ”Easy-to-Use” menus. The menus guide the operator through the system. Any person, even with no experience of computers, can easily operate KSM after having been trained in 20 minutes only.

User-friendly and Self-explanatory ”Easy-to-Use” - Windows menus for easy operating.

Accuracy

KSM system based upon a video camera is taking an image of the cross-section with accuracy of 0.05%.

Accuracy better than 1/2000th of the image size.

Knowledge

KSM is under continuous development, both of soft- and hardware to be able to meet the requirements of the tomorrow products. Today KSM can measure almost any shape and dimensions of cables. For any new design of cables you might want to produce in the future, we can develop gauging programs to a reasonable cost. KSM is a wide-accepted concept among our customers. Well-known technology, over 10 years of experience and over 65 delivered KSM systems, many customers having 2 or more.

80% of all delivered KSM systems have been placed directly in, or nearby, the production.

The system can be used either as a stand-alone one or be integrated directly into your company’s network system. As you can see on the enclosed reference list there is no KSM that is like the others.

Until now we have measured within the range of 0.5 - 130 mm in the outer diameter, others on request.

Well-known and accepted technology. Customized to your own needs.

Software

Measurements made by KSM are stored on the hard disc as Standard ASCII-files using Article number or/and Order number as reference. Thereafter they are available for the summary printout and statistical evaluations or exported to “Excel-files”.

Even for your ISO-certification is tractability substantially simplified.

ACM has also software for handling and analysing the data:
  • KSM-LDB: Database to store reference and measured values linked to the production line.
  • KSM-Trend: Giving the operator trend curves and over dimensional cost.
  • KSM-Filter: Filter program to select from measured data.
  • KSM-DB SQL: Database, SQL to store reference and measured values.
  • KSM-Remote: Allow KSM to operate directly under your own Database program.