Seidel Enterprises Readies Prototype Collator

By: Jim Rosenberg With conveyors, inserters, a hopper loader and stacker now in its product line-up, Seidel Enterprises Inc., Easton, Pa., has set its sights on fast, automated collating.

Reporting that SEI has completed engineering, expects to have a prototype ready by year's end, and looks to begin marketing the SE6000 early next year, President Randy Seidel featured at his Nexpo booth a video animation showing in outline the design and operation of the 60,000-copy-per-hour collator.

Citing the pocket, gripper conveyor and controls, Seidel said that "many of the components are already proven" in his company's new SE3500 inserter (see the May issue of E&P).

Calling the SE6000 "pretty much lights-out operations -- no people," Seidel said the two big factors that distinguish the collator are that "we're moving the product from the top up, and we eliminate the people."

Suckers pull inserts from the top rather than the bottom of a stack, from which they are fed with a four-inch lap into an inverted shingle stream. Preprints are collated in heaviest-to-lightest sequence, with the lighter being placed under the heavier, with the aerodynamics helping avoid fly-aways.

Preprints from once side and jackets from the other approach a pocketed central conveyor moving in an oval perpendicular to the materials. Collated preprints are gripped, de-shingled and placed, under control, in a pocket as the perpendicular oval conveyor moves jackets to the preprint side, from which the completed packages are conveyed to the top of the pocketed oval conveyor and exit the system.

As a system, the collator incorporates carts that can be automatically preloaded and programmed, using radio-frequency identification tags, to work with specific feeders and functioning as buffers for inserts or jackets. Carts will occupy about the same amount of floor space as hopper loaders but with much greater capacity, according to Seidel.

The SE6000 will feature automatic repair, double-out capability at 120,000 cph, and unadjusted handling of materials of varying dimensions, according to SEI.

In 10-into-1 configuration, the SE6000's compact design gives it a smaller footprint than a comparable SLS-model inserter from Muller Martini Mailroom Systems, according to Seidel, formerly president and CEO of Muller Martini's North American newspaper business. At 20-into-1, he adds, the footprints are approximately the same.