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Isola Laminate Systems in Ridgeway, S.C. is a subsidiary of Isola AG, the world's leading maker of high-quality materials for the electronics industry. The company supplies copper-clad, fiberglass-reinforced base materials for making circuit boards, with 11 production facilities in Asia, Europe and the United States.

In early 2003 Isola looked to solve a recurring problem involving the cables attached to a specialized fork truck that lifts laminates which are then loaded into a press. The truck can support an astounding 40,000 pounds of weight, however the cables supplying energy to the system were experiencing repeated failures approximately every two weeks. It would routinely take hours to uninstall and reinstall the cables through the existing cable carrier.

With igus ReadyChain Isola’s fork truck has been running without interruption for nine months. The ReadyChain is comprised of an E2 Energy Chain and CF5 cables. It travels 15 feet in a horizontal motion.

Isola also went with an igus ReadyChain to replace an existing energy supply system on a pick and place robot. Within 5 days, they placed their order, received the product and installed the ReadyChain. They also recently ordered ReadyChains to replace systems on 4 additional pick and place robots.

Larry Newton, Maintenance Supervisor, Isola said, “Igus provides stellar service, going above and beyond typical customer support. I blinked my eyes and the product was in my hands. Literally within days from when we placed the order we had it up and running. With ReadyChain, we’ve cut downtime in half, reduced our overall engineering costs by $1,000 and reduced purchasing costs by 50%.”

To learn more about Isola, please visit www.isola-group.com