Industrial Automation for Roofing and Shingle Production
Increase Throughput And Consistency Without Adding Downtime
Stay competitive in today’s asphalt shingle manufacturing market with customized retrofit and coordinated drive control systems designed for your operation. Whether you’re navigating raw material shortages and labor gaps or meeting strict safety and environmental standards, fully integrated turnkey solutions are available that increase efficiency, reduce downtime, and keep costs in check.
With deep industry knowledge and advanced system diagnostics, our engineering team works to optimize every component of your operation, from drives and motors to HMIs, PLCs, and process instrumentation.
We optimize asphalt shingle production through:
Results: Consistent quality. Less waste. Maximum output.
Why Quad Plus?
You need to maximize your operating time. Still, you know it’s time to implement changes that will boost the efficiency of your current roofing equipment. How can this be achieved?
The answer lies in a trusted partner with the right knowledge and experience. We will accurately evaluate your processes and design improvements through process performance and industrial automation for roofing. When you choose Quad Plus to be that trusted partner, you can expect an expert level of experience in the asphalt roofing production process.
We will analyze your current operations to provide a customized retrofit solution designed with your roofing shingle productivity target in mind. We use advanced process control technologies during the design phase to verify system behavior before we implement your solution.
The same engineers who designed your solution will also perform the onsite commissioning of your entire system. This consistency is crucial for ensuring that industrial automation for roofing works as intended with your existing equipment.
Industrial Automation for Roofing in Asphalt Shingle Manufacturing
Equipment Obsolescence
Old equipment can significantly limit your production capacity or overall machine utilization. Production machine limitations can take the form of outdated control technology, equipment capacity limits, process control issues, and unsupportable drive systems. Such problems need to be identified through machine data analysis. The next step is to address the issues through automation design with the machine control process in mind, replacing legacy equipment where necessary.
Web Handling Defects
Avoiding web breaks, process control shutdowns, and off-spec products means stopping them at their source. Analyzing the web tension and process control can help identify and then later prevent excessive machine downtime. Web breaks and process issues result in consequential production time and material waste. For example, consider the time lost when rethreading the machine. Poor web handling and control can cause your final product to fall outside its specification.
Quality Inconsistency
On the back (process) end of the machine, controlling the thickness of asphalt on the shingle during saturation is critical to maintaining consistent quality. Precise temperature control is also essential for coating applications. Proper control of granular batching and filled coating must be taken into account, along with servo blending of the granular material onto the shingle. At the front end of the machine, proper cut-to-length controls must perform within the specification.
Asphalt Roofing Line Optimization
Over the years, changes in production needs will lead to changes in mechanical, automation, or electrical systems. The result is often bottlenecks and slowdowns of successive segments down the line. In some cases, the machine may not have been properly optimized from the beginning, but now needs to run at a higher quality or capacity. Because of this, the entire web handling process should be evaluated.
This process evaluation starts with an examination of the current control systems and capabilities, including a study of the power capabilities of the existing motor drive train. The material characteristics as they feed through the machine are observed, along with the potential for new technologies.
With a speed increase, determining the required power to account for the new speed means understanding the capabilities of the sectional motors and the associated drive train, as well as the limits of process variables such as dryers, coolers, flow, etc.
Quad Plus has performed many line speed increases and line optimizations throughout the years to improve tension control, process control, and position or length control. Industrial automation for roofing will ensure the highest production output and product quality.
Precision Tension Management for Reliable Sheet Handling
Precise tension control is essential for maintaining product quality and preventing costly downtime. Quad Plus designs and integrates advanced tension management systems that ensure consistent web handling from unwind to windup. Each system is engineered to maintain stable line tension under changing speeds, material types, and process conditions.
Our approach combines load cells, dancer sensors, and closed-loop drive feedback to provide real-time feedback and automatic correction. This minimizes web breaks, edge damage, and misalignment, improving product uniformity and reducing waste.
Quad Plus engineers also retrofit existing lines with modern tension control components and PLC integration to improve diagnostics and responsiveness. Whether part of a new installation or system upgrade, our solutions deliver measurable improvements in throughput, accuracy, and long-term equipment life.
Tension management is a critical factor in achieving smooth, uninterrupted production. Quad Plus ensures your system performs to specification every shift.
Statistical Process Control (SPC) Method and Quality
Your base material and the final product must meet specific quality requirements. With online web gauging system integration, the material can be monitored in real-time throughout the entire manufacturing process.
During asphalt coating and mineral granule applications, the web should be monitored for thickness, uniform distribution, and particle embedding. Final products must also be the correct weight, size, and color.
By monitoring for profile disturbances, controls can be fine-tuned to accommodate appropriate settings for the material. Real-time monitoring can minimize waste and reduce product variances. Based on these measurements, improved coating coverage and thickness can improve back end stability and allow for running closer to target, saving on material costs.
Additionally, as the quality measurements are scanned, data is stored in a database for further reporting and analysis after production. The reporting tools allow identification and comparison of product qualities to determine the root cause of issues.
Comprehensive Support for Asphalt Shingle Production Systems
Building Products Case Studies
Integrating Industrial Automation for Roofing into Asphalt Manufacturing
Quad Plus offers a wide variety of services to assist you no matter where you are in the system integration lifecycle. For new builds, we offer design and project management services. For existing plants, we can make your operation run smoother and more efficiently. For plants with obsolete control systems, we can assist with retrofits and upgrades. No matter your business need, we have you covered!
Enhance Efficiency with Industrial Automation for Roofing
Staying competitive in shingle production requires precision, speed, and reliability. Our industrial automation for roofing solutions is designed to streamline processes, reduce waste, and maximize uptime. Partner with Quad Plus to modernize your operations and achieve consistent, high-quality output.
Frequently Asked Questions
Asphalt shingle production relies on unwinds, accumulators, coaters, saturators, dryers, cutters, granule applicators, and coordinated drive and control systems. Quad Plus supports these systems through retrofits, automation upgrades, and precision process controls.
Automation stabilizes web tension, improves coating accuracy, enhances temperature and granule control, and reduces unplanned downtime. These improvements minimize waste, prevent off-spec product, and allow lines to run closer to target.
Best practices include maintaining precise tension management, integrating SPC, modernizing obsolete drives and PLCs, improving HMI visibility, and validating system behavior before commissioning. These steps ensure consistent quality, smoother throughput, and reliable long-term performance.
