Unforeseen downtimes in serial production are always accompanied by high costs, making it essential for machines to be serviced in time. Because sensor, transmission and data storage technology have taken a big leap forward in recent years, predictive maintenance has already been realized in some industries, demonstrating a tangible benefit of Industry 4.0. The WZL and the WBA have developed a guideline for this.

Fig. 1. The guideline for the development of predictive maintenance solutions is divided into three phases: analysis, design and implementation

Guideline to the Development of Predictive Maintenance Systems for Serial Producers and Toolmaking Companies

Industrie 4.0 für die Qualitätssicherung

Industrie 4.0

Instandhaltung

Condition Monitoring / Prozessüberwachung

Werkzeug- und Formenbau

Dienstleistungen

Werkzeug-, Formen- und Modellbau

Sensoren verschiedener Messverfahren

Fertigungsautomation

Sensorik / Aktorik

Fernwartung / Ferndiagnose

Machine Learning

Datenanalyse

Dienstleistungsqualität

Qualitätsmanagement

Industrie 4.0 für die Kunststoffverarbeitung

Instandhaltungsmanagement (TPM)

Vorbeugende Instandhaltung für die Qualitätssicherung

Werkzeugbau

Machine Learning für die Qualitätssicherung

Symbiosis of Toolmaking and  Serial Production

The toolmaking industry of the future is facing significant changes in its range of services and its value creation processes. It is difficult to predict exactly how the collaboration of German tool manufacturers with series production will be structured in the future. However, it can be assumed that digital networking and sustainability will play a key role.

What the Two Trend Topics Mean for Collaboration between Toolmaking and Series Production

Digitale Transformation

Wirtschaft

Innovationen und neue Technologie

Spritzgießwerkzeuge

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Maschinen und Komponenten

Werkzeuge für die Kunststoffverarbeitung

Nachhaltigkeit

Umweltmanagement

Energieeffizienz

Ressourcenmanagement

Produktion

Toolmaking of the Future –  Digitalized and Sustainable

Whether it is the cycle time, energy consumption or process stability: the levers for greater efficiency and quality in the injection molding process are many and varied. With the new performance.boost Engel offer its customers an expertise as a service for process analysis and optimization.

With its expert knowledge, the company identifies process optimization potential and provides user support during their implementation. The results include shorter cycle times, superior part quality, greater process stability, lower energy consumption or a longer machine service life

16:9

Spritzgießen

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Verfahren

Kunststoffverarbeitung

Lohnfertigung

Spritzgießmaschinen

Instandhaltungssoftware

Optimize Processes Efficiently with Engel performance.boost

Luciano Anceschi, also known as President of Euromap, has found a new managing director for his family's company. 

The Company Develops Its Leadership with this Appointment 

Extrusion

Blasformen

Stefano Venturelli New Tria CEO as of April 1 

Japanese technology group Asahi Kasei expands its manufacturing infrastructure for lithium-ion battery separators by 450 million sqm to 1.55 billion sqm / year. The group is reacting to the booming demand on the battery market worldwide and the growing needs of customers. 

Rising Demand for Lithium-Ion Battery Separators 

Energiemanagement / Ladetechnik

Asahi Kasei Invests 238 Million Euros in Manufacturing Infrastructure 

Electromobility, whether based on batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, permits zero-emission driving and the integration of the transport sector into an overall concept with a high share of renewable energy. Fuel cell technology will play a key role here, not only because of its long-range capability. However, the deciding factor will be the use of high-quality, but also cost-effective, materials and production processes to offer reliable, affordable products. This will place demands on plastics technology, in particular. 

Electromobility Arguments in Favor of a Future with Hydrogen 

Brennstoffzelle

Elektromobilität

Verbundwerkstoffe / Werkstoffverbunde

Kohlenstofffasern / -matten

Plastics in Fuel Cells 

A gap exists between growth in equipment sales and numbers of manufactured parts. Most likely, a lot of experimentation is still going on. A symposium provided insights into projects, problems and prospects for additive manufacturing. 

Additive Manufacturing ¿ Between Growth Euphoria and a Sense of Reality 

Fluorkunststoffe

Additive Fertigung

Putting 3D Printing to the Test 

In order to qualify new materials for different 3D printing technologies, the company offers manufacturers of 3D printers and system providers an open materials platform. 

Henkel Wants to Qualify New Materials 

Open Materials Platform for 3D Printing 

Ford has selected desktop 3D printers to create various assembly tools, and can now produce jigs and fixtures, and even in highly complex designs, in-house at low cost. Ultimaker¿s open filament system enables the automaker to create parts with various filaments from a range of material manufacturers and meet specific material properties exactly. 

Ford Uses Additive Manufacturing with FDM Technology for Producing Assembly Tools in its Automotive Production 

Kunststoff-Halbzeuge

Printed Tools for High-Volume Production  

Arburg expands further into Southeast Asia. On 17 May 2019, Andrea Carta, Arburg Director of Overseas Sales, together with Ratree Boonsay, Managing Director Arburg Thailand and Dr. Alexander Raubold, Counsellor Economic and Commercial Affairs of the German embassy in Bangkok, officially opened the new subsidiary building in Samutprakarn, one of Thailand's leading industrial regions. 

Largest Arburg Showroom in Southeast Asia 

Arburg Expansion in Thailand 

Dow and Menshen present a new transformative Reverse Spout Sealing Technology that enables the production of spouted pouches made of mono-material films. This technology allows converters to address the recycling criteria for flexible packaging and can help brands meet their sustainability packaging goals.  

Reversing the Traditional Sealing Process Brought the Solution 

Kunststoff-Recycling

Klebstoffe

Dow and Menshen bring Sustainable Design to Spouted Pouches 

The Institute for Plastics Processing in Aachen is drumming up support for an innovative event that will demonstrate diversity and present the unexpected. Even the event's initiator, Prof. Hopmann, is keyed up and can't wait to see what will be presented there ¿ as he divulged to us in an interview.  

IKV premiere will throw light on the fundamentals of plastics technology  

Blasfolienextrusion

Faserverarbeitung

Lehrstühle und Institute

Call for papers for a symposium for lateral thinkers  

CoreTech System Co. Ltd., the leading provider of engineering simulation solutions for the plastics industry, has named S&T Consulting Hungary Kft. (S&T) as its first Moldex3D Authorized Certification Center (MACC) in Central Europe.  

CoreTech System Co. Ltd. Named S&T Consulting in Hungary  

Spritzgießsimulation

Prozesssimulation

First Moldex3D Authorized Certification Center in Central Europe 

Together with around 100 guests and partners from Europe, Asia and North America BBG celebrated its the 20th anniversary in mid-May. At the event that was organized at the company's headquarters in Mindelheim in the Unterallgäu region the specialist for the plastics processing industry presented a large number of new products.  

Anniversary with Product Premieres 

PUR-Werkzeuge

Werkzeugreinigung, Kunststoffe

Schäumen / Reaktive Verarbeitung

PUR-Schäummaschinen

20 Years BBG  

BASF has announced the following changes in its management team. 

New Managers in Various Business Areas 

Polyurethan

Kunststoff-Aufbereitung

Kunststoffhandel

Personnel Changes at BASF  

The Possibilities of  Cross-Company Digitalization

Way2K: Interview between VDMA and Markus Gschwandtner

In the lead-up to K 2022, the trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry in Düsseldorf, Germany, Markus Gschwandtner, CEO of Brückner Servtec GmbH, talks about the advantages of digitalization for predictive maintenance and for the circular economy.

Mr. Gschwandtner, your company has to ensure that Brückner film lines run trouble-free at customer sites. What role does digitalization play in this operation?

Digitalization is of crucial importance to us as the interface between Brückner and the customer, which is why we continuously drive forward integration and exchange of data and information. To this end, we have set up a digital service platform where the customer can access our services online. Let me give you an example: the delivery scope of a plant includes extensive documentation. Up until now, it has always consisted of many folders. If the customer wanted some information, it could take a while to find the relevant passages. On our service platform, this documentation is now available online at any time. The service technician standing in front of the machine then has easy and quick access to the necessary information via a tablet or smartphone.

Consequently, access to information is becoming easier. What other advantages are there?

The fundamental advantages are transparency and simplicity. Here is another example: we install about 30,000 parts in each machine. Many of these are labelled with a QR code, including parts from suppliers. It identifies each component from the beginning of its life with Brückner until it is used at the customer’s site. All customers need to do is scan the part they want to replace; both we and the customer then know exactly which part is concerned and when it will be available. This allows us to react much more quickly and, if necessary, to fix a problem much sooner.

Many companies hesitate when it comes to handing over data. How do you convince them?

We have to ensure that the data is truly secure. At our company, there are no leaks. We are TÜV-certified. But that assurance alone isn’t enough to convince a customer; the decisive factor is that we need to make sure the customer sees the enormous advantages. The benefits of data integration are the greatest where corporate boundaries are crossed. Over 70 percent of our customers are already on our digital platform. Basically, it’s the same principle as a smartphone: you see what’s possible with it, and soon after, you find you can’t do without it.

What is the next big digitalization topic?

The big digital project of the future is predictive maintenance. When one of our production lines comes to a standstill, the customer loses around 10,000 euros on average in revenue, and that figure is per hour. It is therefore important to keep these stoppages as brief as possible, but in any case, to be able to predict them. We are already well on the way to doing that, installing sensors, for instance, to assess the status of critical components. In the future, we will also use artificial intelligence to predict when a part might break or when maintenance should be carried out. The goal is to increase the ability to plan necessary maintenance work ahead, because that will save considerable costs and increase the production uptime.

Predictive maintenance helps make utilization of the production line and also all subsequent steps more sustainable. For example, if maintenance is carried out without it actually being necessary at the time, spare parts will also be replaced needlessly early. So, you will need a lot more material over the life cycle of a plant. But resources are also conserved if, for example, we install more energy-efficient motors during upgrades and modifications. The goal must be to use as few resources as possible, be it material, energy, or raw materials. Only through digitalization can we achieve the transparency necessary for this purpose.

How are digitalization and the circular economy interrelated?

Without digitalization, it would be very difficult to enable a circular economy. With it, however, we can for example label products during the production process. Then machines can recognize later in the waste collection cycle what the packaging film is actually made of. It is then possible to identify that a piece of packaging film is made of polyethylene and does not contain more than five percent different and foreign materials. This means it is fully recyclable. But the production lines have to be prepared. Such mono-material structures require numerous modifications to the plants. Only then can a high-quality plastic packaging film, which is ready for circular economy, be guaranteed.

What’s the next phase in the circular economy?

With regard to packaging films, circular economy can only work if we aim for mono-material structures. But it is also important to have a better collection system for plastics, comparable to that for bottles. It must be made as simple as possible for the consumer. Next, the plastic has to be separated so that you get single-source plastics. The next step is single-source recycling. But then there is the question of what to use the recyclate for. Turning a packaging film back into a packaging film remains a vision for the time being but turning recycled packaging film into good products that can be used in injection molding, for example, would make sense.

The technical challenges will be overcome. It will be more difficult to implement a viable collection system. And then it is important that the circular economy is established all over the world. A lot is collected in Germany or Austria, but not so much yet elsewhere in Europe and in many other parts of the world. The quantities are still too small for the circular economy to be economically viable. That has to change, too.

VDMA - Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau e.V. 

https://www.vdma.org

Brückner Servtec GmbH  

https://www.brueckner.com

Ausgabenartikel

Markus Gschwandtner, CEO of Brückner Servtec GmbH.

On the digital service platform the documentation is available online at any time.