Dave Foskett - West and South Eastern United States Contact

As a leader in providing OEE improvements for the North American packaging industry through automatic roll splicing, Butler Automatic covers the U.S. market with well-known industry veteran David Foskett. David covers the West and South Eastern states including AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, HI, ID, KS, LA, MS, MO, MT, NC, NE, NV, NM, ND, OK, OR, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WV, WA, WY.

Contact David to learn how Butler can improve your overall factory output. 

View fullsize

Video - Why Butler Automatic Joined The Contract Packaging Association

With more than 2,000 automatic roll splicing solutions on packaging applications, Butler Automatic is the leader in providing OEE solutions for many co-packers, increasing their overall factory output.

According to the 2019 Flexible Packaging Assessment report conducted by PMMI, one VP of Engineering at a global food company noted that “To get us to invest in new machines, we would need the machines to be more flexible and easier to change over. For instance, not having to turn off the equipment to make a film change and allowing us to change it and splice it in would be a huge time saver. That right there would make us consider buying new equipment.” Butler Automatic roll splicers eliminate roll change downtime, automatically splicing without stopping the process.

Butler Automatic is proud to be included in this Contract Packaging and Manufacturers Association video. An associate CPA member, Butler works with 50+ packaging machine builders and 100s of end users to correctly configure automatic roll splicing solutions for flexible packaging applications.

Butler Automatic will be exhibiting at the Global Pouch Forum June 11-13 2019

The flexible packaging industry (especially pouching) is experiencing fast, worldwide growth, with manufacturers seeing a shift in products transitioning to flexible packaging where it has not been used before. Butler Automatic builds automatic roll splicers for packaging applications. Butler splicers eliminate roll change downtime, which is the largest contributor to bagging and pouching line output loss. Visit Butler Automatic in booth #47 at the Global Pouch Forum, June 11-13th to learn how an automatic splicing solution can improve overall factory output for your application.

How Butler Automatic uses metrics to help our customers increase the output of their packaging lines

Butler Automatic builds automatic roll splicers for packaging applications. Butler splicers eliminate roll change downtime, which is the largest contributor to bagging, pouching, or thermoform line output loss. 

Our job is to deliver a new machine to our customer on time, facilitate a vertical start up, and ensure the machine serves our customer for many years in continuous operation with minimal maintenance. Butler uses several standard operational metrics to constantly improve our ability to execute on the mission stated above. It is critical to not just measure our performance, but also analyze variances from our performance to improve performance over time.

Butler measures simple things like on time delivery, first time installation success, and parts shipping turn-around times. These are important “final” metrics. But it is also important to go a little deeper on the customer side by measuring whether Butler solutions are operating as the customer expects, 6 and 12 weeks after installation. Butler monitors our after-market business by measuring our time to ship parts orders (80% of our packaging splicer parts orders are shipped on the same day that we receive the order). On the engineering side, we measure how long it takes to release a set of specifications, how many engineering changes are made (ECOs) and the cause of those changes. Our measurements apply on the financial side as well. We measure our vendor payment days, customer collections, and we produce our financial results within one or two days of the end of each month. We try to measure everything that will contribute to a successful delivery, installation, integration, and long-term performance in the field. 

How does this data help us deliver better machines, on time to our customers? Having this data allows us to run our business better. If we can run all aspects of our business better, Butler, our vendors, employees, and technical partners will all be able to support our customers when needed.

Measuring the data is not what provides the results. Looking at the variances from the expected results, analyzing those variances, continuously improving processes and checking the results of those process changes are what provide the results. At Butler Automatic we are measuring our results and continuously tweaking our processes to design, build and support better solutions for our customers.

David Steines - EMEA Contact

Butler Automatic continues to grow in Europe and EMEA. Contact David Steines for OEE boosting solutions.

Safety and Butler Automatic

Butler Automatic had a company-wide pizza party this week to celebrate two years without any lost time workplace accidents. Safety in our workplace, much like safe operation of Butler Automatic splicing solutions on our customers’ production lines, is a top priority.  

Contract Packaging and Butler Automatic

Contract Packaging in North America will be a $75 billion industry in 2020. A CPA associate member, Butler provides automatic roll splicing solutions to many co-packers, increasing their overall factory output.

Butler Automatic Introduces SP1 Automatic Splicer Ease of Use Enhancements

Middleboro, MA – Butler, the leader in providing OEE improvements for the packaging industry through automatic splicing, introduces several design improvements and features for the 2019 SP1 Automatic Roll splicer. The ease of use design improvements include new HMI graphics, air intake and splice prepared monitoring, web break detection and web stop, omni-directional adjustable brackets for core sensors, adjustable, integrated exit idlers, base mounted automatic web alignment, sealed stainless steel roller bearings, and a more robust mainframe nip assembly.

These improvements were designed and implemented in order to make the operator/machine interaction simpler, reduce training and maintenance time, and improve OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) in our end user’s packaging lines. The new HMI graphics include enhanced visual feedback on the process and recovery instructions making operation and problem recovery easier. The web break detection, air and splice monitoring reduce operator error caused downtime. The sealed stainless steel bearings last longer, thus reducing maintenance time.

Mike Mucci, Vice President of Engineering, states that these product improvements “are the result of listening to our customers and Butler Automatic’s drive to design, deliver and support automatic roll splicing solutions which are easy to use, reliable, and perform consistently.”

With more than two thousand SP1 splicers installed on packaging lines globally, Butler Automatic is a trusted resource when it comes to increasing overall factory output by eliminating roll change downtime. 

To learn more about the SP1 enhancements, please click here.

Butler Automatic Joins The Association for Contract Packagers & Manufacturers

Contract Manufacturing is one of the hottest growth sectors in packaging. In response to demand for higher output packaging lines, with many Butler systems installed at contract manufacturers’ facilities already, Butler Automatic is pleased to join the Association for Contract Packagers and Manufacturers, aka the CPA. Butler Automatic splicing solutions increase total factory output by eliminating downtime for roll changes.

Five Step Plan to Boost OEE with Automatic Roll Splicing

Butler Automatic offers top five tips to get the maximum Overall Equipment Effectiveness from reliable Butler Automatic splicers

Backed by the experience of delivering more than 17,000 automatic splicing solutions worldwide over the past 65 years, Butler Automatic has published a Five Step Plan To Boost OEE With Automatic Roll Splicing, which results in customers gaining several points of increased Overall Equipment Effectiveness (Availability x Productivity x Quality) for roll fed packaging lines. 

The first step is to involve Butler Automatic in discussions with roll fed applications equipment providers from the beginning of the project.  When the Butler team is directly involved on-site at installation and ramp-up, Butler achieves successful implementation quickly, 99% of the time.  The second and third tips are to utilize Butler’s One Point Lesson Plans (OPL’s), and Clean-Inspect-Lubricate instructions (CIL’s). With these documents Butler customers are able to train and maintain for top performance of Butler solutions, consistently achieving increased output by eliminating 100% of line stoppages for roll changes.  The fourth step includes having a short list of essential wear parts on-hand since Butler solutions consume very few wear parts. The fifth and perhaps most vital, is to establish a solid connection with our team. Butler service and parts teams support our applications 24/7.

Butler Automatic Reveals SP1 Splicer Enhancement

New ‘WAVE’ bar feature ensures optimal vacuum coverage

Middleboro, MA - Butler Automatic announces a recent innovation to their SP1 Automatic Splicer.

Upgraded vacuum bars featuring Width Adaptive Vacuum Effectivity (WAVE) technology, eliminate edge curl which creates issues on certain films. The new wave bar is an improvement over previous vacuum bars because it includes strategically-placed vacuum holes in conjunction with wave-shaped vacuum slots. This enhancement means that SP1 users consistently have adequate vacuum coverage for their splices, regardless of the width of the film being used. This innovation allows customers the flexibility to change format widths of plastic films without the worry of covering holes on vacuum bars. The innovative design also ensures minimal vacuum loss (i.e. maximum Vacuum Effectivity) regardless of film width. To view a video of the new wave bar design, please click here.

Mike Mucci, Vice President of Engineering at Butler Automatic, states that this enhancement “allows our automatic roll splicing solutions to be more reliable and drive higher OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) on roll-fed packaging lines.”

The upgraded WAVE bars are currently featured on certain SP1 orders and can be added to existing machines on a per case basis.

Butler Automatic SP1 Automatic Film Splicer Reduces Downtime in Consumer Packaged Goods Packaging

Splicer performs non-stop film changes in CPG packaging operations 

Middleborough, MA– Butler Automatic, the inventor and global leader of automatic splicing solutions, announces that its SP1 Series Automatic Film Splicer is ideally suited towards consumer packaged goods (CPG) packaging applications. The SP1 Automatic Film Splicer increases efficiency in packaging operations by eliminating the packaging line downtime caused by manual film roll changes.

“CPG packaging operations can benefit from the introduction of the SP1 Automatic Film Splicer because it has a significant positive impact on line efficiency,” said Mike Mucci, Vice President of Engineering at Butler Automatic.  “The SP1 enables customers to eliminate the leading cause of planned downtime – film roll changes – and therefore to dramatically improve profitability.”

In eliminating film roll change and manual splicing, Butler’s automatic splicing technology typically reduces downtime by 5-10 minutes per operational hour. For a typical packaging line operating 20 hours per day, 6 days per week, this can yield up to 20-25 hours of additional production per week, or the equivalent of an extra day’s production.

With a simple mechanical design and high-quality manufacture, the SP1 promises long-term, trouble-free performance. The device senses the diameter of the expiring roll of film and automatically splices the end of each expiring roll onto the new roll. It is capable of running at speeds of up to 600 feet per minute (FPM).

In addition to the standard SP1 automatic splicer, Butler offers the SP1 RB, designed for full wash-down capability. The SP1 RB is built to standards common with many regulatory requirements. It features mostly stainless steel construction, with only specific splicing head cylinders using coated aluminum, and has minimal flat surfaces.