The Equipment and Components News You Need, Now
In a year without in-person trade fairs, industry suppliers are focused on finding solutions to help factories get product out the door, fast.
After more than a year of watching the mattress manufacturing industry struggle through a global pandemic that has brought swings in demand and supply chain interruptions of epic proportions, the editors of BedTimes — reporting from the quiet isolation of our home offices — now bring you a mini-industry fair. It’s in print and online only and not half as fun as a walk through ISPA EXPO or Interzum Cologne, but here we try to share some news of the latest machinery innovations and mattress components. (Information was provided by the companies.)
With some of the biggest pressures currently on foam supplies, many of the innovations in this story are timely. There are more and better fibers and fiber blends newly available from a number of innovative suppliers. These components can take the place of at least some of the foam in a mattress. And some of the news in pocket springs relates to microcoils used in the bed’s top layer in place of comfort foams. In other springs news, the latest generation not only wants to replace foam in a mattress — it wants to replace glue, as well.
Industry suppliers also have tapped into other pressing needs weighing on producers’ minds:
I want my plant to be more self-sufficient. Some of the newest equipment delivers simpler operation and more affordable pricing, allowing producers to bring things like foam fabrication in-house.
I need tools to boost productivity, while protecting my workers’ safety. You can move components and finished products around the plant with tools that mechanize nonskilled tasks, like hoisting, stacking and flipping products. And speaking of speeding up production lines, new adhesives allow immediate packaging of finished beds.
I need a better FR barrier. The latest barriers are far more flexible in a number of ways. They have a better fit, are easier to work with, are available in a number of formats and some don’t use any fiberglass.
I need to operate more sustainably. Springs suppliers offer units designed for recycling ease at the end of their useful life. New adhesives are made with renewable ingredients, and new manufacturing equipment reduces post-industrial waste, such as foam scrap.
Need to enter a new niche? Have you thought about vegan bedding? Read on to find out which industry supplier can help you do just that and see what else the bedding industry’s suppliers have been up to on behalf of the bedding industry in the past year.
Both Space- and Glue-Saving
Atlanta Attachment Co.’s latest addition to its array of lamination equipment brings greater automation to what can be a messy operation. The Lawrenceville, Georgia-based company’s 1368R Rail Glue Machine neatly and quickly assembles the rails for foam encased mattresses, using hot-melt adhesive. Among its many advantages, the 1368R is easy to program and use. It automatically detects rail size, uses minimal glue and has a small footprint. The unit operates via touch screen on Atlanta Attachment’s signature Serial Bus Control System.
Testing Ace
The new H339-SMP Automatic Mattress Testing Machine from Lawrenceville, Georgia-based Atlanta Attachment Co. has multiple uses. It calculates and classifies the physical attributes (dimensions and weight) of finished mattresses or foam panels and can feed detected data into management software systems for the preparation of product labels or certification of conformity to product specifications. The testing machine also operates in tandem with filling equipment to adjust for the size of each piece fed by its motorized roller conveyor into the companion equipment.
Safer and Speedier Production Lines
Lawrenceville, Georgia-based Atlanta Attachment Co.’s versatile H290-2V Automatic Mattress Stacker keeps plants neat and tidy and speeds up assembly by automatically piling beds onto pallets or into bins. The stacker reduces production downtime and can be installed in line, functioning as a pass-through with motorized conveyor and frontal discharge, and/or to the right or the left. The equipment does the heavy lifting, sparing your plant personnel.
https://bedtimesmagazine.com/2021/05/the-equipment-and-components-news-you-need-now/