E.L. Pruitt Mechanical Contracting Services’ sheet metal shop in the Illinois state capitol, Springfield, is experiencing a surge in demand, with sheet metal workers working overtime since last year to fabricate duct for a mounting roster of jobs.

These include the conversion of a department store into an environmental agency, and the conversion of the old print shop for the State Journal-Register into a coroner’s office, to name a few.

Jim Richbark, sheet metal shop foreman and superintendent, says to meet this newfound demand efficiently, they decided to get rid of their old 5’x10’ plasma table in favor of a new 5’x20’ Vicon plasma table with an automatic four-coil feeder.

“It cuts down on your waste, with time and materials,” Richbark said. “Before, when you had stuff burning out on the table, you had to wait until it was done before you started pulling off your cuts, or you’d smoke the whole shop out.”

The first job they cut on the machine was more ductwork to reroute the fume extraction system. With overhead doors open and fans blowing, they cut duct running from the machine to the ceiling. They also cut two holes for fumes, one on either side of a diving wall, or baffle, underneath the metal rails, ducting them into the rerouted extraction system.

“As it crosses that baffle, then you can start removing pieces off the end of the table. So you're not sitting there watching it burn,” said Rob Wester, sheet metal shop foreman. “We’re able to work as its burning and multitask.”

Operating the plasma table and putting stickers on each fitting was always a one-person job, but now that one person can do his job with less machine downtime.

“Another added benefit of the Vicon is that when it nests them onto the sheet, it actually nests them pretty close to a fitting at a time. And actually you can’t always do that with larger fittings, but with smaller ones, when you're pulling them off there, it takes less time to sort them because they're already somewhat presorted,” Wester said.

The biggest time savings come from the automatic four-coil feeder that allows Wester to switch between different gauges within five minutes, with minor adjustments and the press of a button. Their prior system relied on moving sheets from a multi-level pallet structure to the plasma table by hand. The sheets used to have to be cut off the sheet metal coil, a time-intensive process requiring a skid loader that now is automated with the coil line.

“Before, it would take our guy two hours to run sheets off just in one gauge, just your 18” gauge sheets, and then you’ve got your 20”, 22” and 24”. That adds up to a day,” Wester concluded. “We can do twice the amount of cutting in half the amount of time. We’ve got the sheets at a push of a button onto the table. And that’s a lot easier on your body.”