Mole Valley benefits from ACS downdraft bench

An FB700II downdraft bench from Air Cleaning Systems (ACS) of Cardiff has solved a dust problem for Mole Valley Systems, a repair, design and refurbishment subcontractor.

With up to 2,000 photocopier components and subassemblies received each month, Mole Valley has to dissect and clean every assembly prior to refurbishment.

However, the pre-operational cleaning of the components in a completely isolated goods-in building does not completely remove all the toner prior to parts being transferred to the repair and refurbishment shop for processing.

This means that an element of dust still enters the workshop.

Despite cleaning assemblies at goods-in, when the assemblies were dissected at the bench, further toner and waste were still located in intricate areas.

This had been accepted as an unavoidable issue.

The problem at Mole Valley arose when shop-floor staff cleaned the remaining residue from the parts with an air line and the remaining traces of toner and paper dust were blown into the workshop atmosphere.

The company recognised the dust as an issue and reviewed the marketplace for a system to remove the problem.

Potential suppliers made it apparent that the solution was to clean the parts with an air line over a downdraft bench.

The evaluation process ruled out a number of suppliers as they were unable to meet Mole Valley's exacting needs.

The first hurdle where competitors fell was providing an adequate working surface.

With some scanner parts/assemblies more than 0.5m long, the downdraft bench had to accept the part and allow sufficient work space for the employee to thoroughly clean the part.

ACS offered a tailor-made solution beyond the standard product range.

The provider of bespoke downdraft benches built the FB700II to a working envelope of 1,300mm in width and 800mm in height.

Mole Valley also wanted a fully enclosed unit to guarantee operator safety and that no particulate could escape into the atmosphere when the parts are blown with an air line.

The tailored FB700II bench differs from the standard bench as ACS provided a full enclosure with an aperture at the front large enough to place the part on the bench and operate the air line.

The enclosure prevents particulate being blown outside the confines of the bench when the air line is operated.

There are hinged sections to the enclosure to facilitate access to the bench work area.

Trevor Hannam, production manager at Mole Valley, said: 'Since acquiring the ACS bench in January, the plant has changed measurably.

'The bench removes more than 85 per cent of the dust and cleaning the adjacent workshop area is now only a small part of the job, rather than a daily necessity.

'The bench is completely enclosed with Perspex guarding that isolates operators from airborne dust.

'The downdraft bench has changed our facility by virtually eliminating the cleaning process,' he added.

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