The engineers began evaluating vendors of scalable platform of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) in 2017 ahead of the GenIII Xstream redesign. However, the microcontroller did not offer the necessary flexibility for customer requirements. The GenI and GenII Xstream machines used an ARM-based microcontroller with a proprietary board that NPI developed in house. Discrete I/O and Ethernet, which NPI previously used, introduced unnecessary complexity, costs and installation effort. Also, the company wanted its machines to be modular and easily extensible. By nature, sortation systems are, expansive and teeming with nodes, which exacerbates performance limitations in switch-based protocols. While NPI’s solutions keep evolving to meet today’s demands, legacy networking and control technologies have not. Overcoming legacy controller’s throughput limitations Standardizing on New Automation Technology from Beckhoff – from EtherCAT networking and scalable controllers to the new TwinCAT/BSD alternative operating system – has also proven invaluable for the future of the company. To meet current demands and assure innovation into the future, NPI expanded its 100,000-square-foot facility with an additional 18,000 square feet of storage and 25,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
“Compared to the large, complex and expensive automated induct systems on the market, our Singulator leads the industry in terms of reduced footprint, cost and labor requirements,” explains Brent Daboub. The Singulator offers a modular, cost-effective induct for an Xstream or equipment from other intralogistics OEMs.
The team recently released the NPI Singulator, which can handle up to 7,500 packages per hour with two operators. Owens and COO Brent Daboub found the floppy packages difficult for standard machines to handle, so they developed the Xstream system. The Fort Worth, Texas-based company focused on letter and flat sortation until 2007 when it began operating an e-commerce facility that processed polypacks for mailing pharmaceuticals. NPI was founded by Henry Daboub in 1977 and released the first fully automated mail sorting machine the following year.
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