Complete monitoring solution for white goods maker

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jul 10, 2002

Electrolux is using the joint forces of Anville Instruments and Hexatec to ensure that the monitoring of testing systems at its R and D centres across Europe is carried out to the highest standard.

The Electrolux Group is the world's largest producer of powered appliances for kitchen, cleaning and outdoor use.

The company sells more than 55 million products each year including refrigerators, cookers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, chain saws and lawnmowers, in more than 150 countries around the world and to a value of around US $14 billion.

The company's reputation for efficiency and safety is seen as of the utmost importance hence Electrolux enforces rigorous testing procedures in all its factories worldwide.

In order to achieve this goal it is vital that testing methods employ the latest technology.

With this in mind Electrolux is using the joint forces of Anville Instruments, manufacturer of data acquisition equipment, and Hexatec, a supplier of high quality industrial manufacturing software, in an effort to ensure that the monitoring of its testing systems at a number of Electrolux's research and development centres across Europe, is carried out to the highest standard.

One specific example of the use of this type of technology is in the testing of refrigerators.

"The manufacturers have two main concerns when testing appliances such as this", explains Richard Haycock, director of Hexatec.

"First is that their product conforms to any relevant safety and other standards, including safety, the second being to maximise energy efficiency".

"Typically Electrolux research and development will test a refrigerator in a controlled environment at many different temperatures and operating conditions", says Steve Harrison, partner at Anville Instruments.

"One such test might involve filling the refrigerator with food, closing the door and leaving for up to 45 minutes.

In that time, no area within the fridge should be more than two degrees centigrade outside the target temperature, the idea being that if a customer goes to the shops and returns within 45 minutes, the refrigerator will not have cooled down so much as to be inefficient in terms of power consumption".

As a part of this testing process, Anville Instruments are responsible for providing the temperature measurement system, accurate to better than 0.5C over a range of -50 to +100C.

"The scale of the testing is vast and in some instances may require the monitoring of up to 500 different inputs at one time from up to 18 test stations", he says.

"Our hardware allows the users to connect all this information and we then use the Hexatec Saturn software to organise the collection of the data on to a PC".

"One of the many reasons why we selected the Hexatec Saturn software", he explains, "was that unlike other software packages, it is capable of handling such large amounts of input".

Also key, he suggests, are the advanced graphics features that allow test result graphics to be displayed on-screen both during and after testing, and in a variety of forms.

The ability the software has to split data into separate data-logging tasks enables a greater degree of flexibility.

A further important aspect of the software, Anville has found, is that of security, vital to any company like Electrolux, keen to ensure that not only can their results not be tampered with, but neither can they be viewed by anyone without authorised access.

Electrolux is just one of the many companies requiring the type of advanced monitoring systems supplied by Anville Instrumentations and incorporating the Hexatec Saturn software.

Others currently supplied include Vestfrost, one of the world's largest manufacturers of chest freezers, LED and Bosch.

Monitoring systems are also currently being used within the pharmaceutical industry in various drug-testing programmes.