Manufacturers’ Monthly discovers how Data Factory’s reverse engineering helped a Victorian manufacturer get back to business after failed servo drives threatened to halt production.

Orthorest Bed Springs manufactures springs for the mattress industry at its production facility in Thomastown. According to Bill Dimarelos, operations manager of OrthoRest Bed Springs, the company uses unique machines nearly two decades old, whose components are hard to come by today.

So, what happens when a servo drive powering an automated production line breaks down, and the existing model is obsolete and no longer supported in Australia?

Having specialised knowledge of Computer Numerical Control (CNC) servo drives, DataFactory has invested heavily in testing equipment and has several databases on drives that date back as far as 1989.

The company also has the ability to reverse-engineer drives and can simulate onsite conditions using a 100-hour test. They can advise if the drive can be repaired and offer a modern replacement unit with detailed change over instructions if it is not

DataFactory provides Australia-wide repairs for electronic variable speed drives, servo drives, alternating current (AC) drives, direct current (DC) drives, electronic inverters, complex electronic boards, and monitors. They are specialists in CNC machines and have expertise in retrofitting and re-engineering control systems.

When disaster struck OrthoRest Bed Springs’ production line just before Christmas, Dimarelos turned to DataFactory through electrician John Pana.

One of the German Socapel servo drives that powered an automated production line in the facility failed, stopping the line and leading to orders piling up.

Pana – an independent electrician who has worked with Bed Springs for the last five years – was contacted to resolve the issue.

“We’ve got an all-in-one troubleshooting guide for these drives,” Pana explained. “If it’s a communication error, we’ll come up with a certain number. In this instance, the card  which is the digital segment in the drive – wasn’t powering up at all.”

The issue was eventually traced to a high-frequency transformer in the power supply section, which rendered the drive irreparable.

“I contacted the manufacturing company that made these machines, but all the drives were obsolete,” he said.

“You would have to replace all ten servo drives. If you can’t repair the drive or get a spare, you’ve got no choice but to spend thousands to replace them. And there’s the associated downtime that comes with sending someone out from overseas to install and pre-program everything.”

Dimarelos called the incident “catastrophic”; even sourcing second-hand units from wherever they were available, like the United States, would take multiple weeks or months. Not to mention the costs involved in doing so.

Enter DataFactory, an Australian electrical engineering company with the niche expertise to repair, re-program, or replace old models of electrical motors and drives no longer supported by their manufacturers.

“If an issue has to do with fibre optics or communications, I can fix it myself. But when there are hardware issues, I remove the drives and bring it up to DataFactory,” Pana said, adding that he was lucky to have stumbled upon them online years ago and now works closely with the business.

DataFactory reverse-engineered the power supply section of the drive and designed a new one from scratch. No easy feat, this was then fitted into the drive so it was up and running again.

“If drives are more than five to ten years old, you can’t get parts and it’s very hard to find someone that will do the repairs. Most people won’t or don’t have the expertise to attempt to reverse engineer, they will have to replace the whole card. Swapping and replacing drives is not a trivial issue, you need an engineer with top knowledge of drives and that is DataFactory’s niche.”

This was not the first time DataFactory has helped OrthoRest Bed Springs – their working relationship goes back to 2020. Pana was the one who introduced DataFactory to OrthoRest Bed Springs, leading to a long-standing partnership between the two companies.

“I had a previous customer who was also making bed springs, and their drives and sensors went to DataFactory for repairs,” Pana explained. Dimarelos said that Darius Kowalewski, manager of DataFactory, had a unique talent for the digital segment in the drive.

“He specialises in this sort of work and is able to deconstruct and analyse the issue to get the components needed. Simply put, we send the parts to him, he does his magic, and it comes back to us working.”

Kowalewski is a professional electrical engineer, and a chartered member of the Institution of Engineers, Australia.

Pana affirmed that there’s less in- house engineering expertise these days in Australian manufacturing and therefore, there is a need for expertise in electronics.

DataFactory fills this gap in the servicing market and being based locally allows them to fix urgent and time-sensitive problems at a heavily reduced cost. The DataFactory facility in Nunawading, Victoria includes a fully equipped lab, test area, and large stocks of spare parts.

“It’s very clear that he (Kowalewski) has that mindset of fixing. A shift in recent years is people think if something stops working, they need to throw it away,” Pana said.

“When we’re talking about industrial- sized things, obviously, that’s a lot more difficult to do. But that same mentality flows through the whole production chain.”

Bill Dimarelos has also noticed the challenge manufacturing plants face in sourcing electrical expertise to solve problems.

“The skill sets are not there to comprehend these engineering concepts and then be able to resolve them. It’s the kind of work that is quite time-consuming and needs skill and experience which, sadly, is what the industry is losing a lot of. Today, people come up trained in a different world, with a completely different mentality.”

“I’m so thankful that DataFactory is around, and you’ve got some secure help to turn to. I’m sure they have helped so many people this way.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly is a business-to-business magazine and a valuable reference tool for all members of the manufacturing industry. The magazine is highly targeted and is read by key decision-makers who purchase and specify manufacturing equipment and services. It is also widely read by suppliers to the manufacturing industry.