Over past months, many in-house workflows and development processes have slowed down and also changed. Nevertheless, time has not stood still, also not in injection molding technology. The debate and development have been shaped by two themes: digitalization and the circular economy. Below are some examples of developments and projects that underpin this trend.

Two displays are seamlessly integrated into the continuously 3D-formed instrument panel

Innovative Injection Molding in Times of Pandemic

Spritzgießen

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Verfahren

Schaumspritzgießen

Künstliche Intelligenz für die Qualitätssicherung

Industrie 4.0

Industrie 4.0 für die Qualitätssicherung

Steuern, Regeln

Software

Mehrkomponenten-Spritzgießen

Folientechnik (IMD, IML, FIM, u.a.)

Digitale Transformation

Wirtschaft

Innovationen und neue Technologie

Spritzgießwerkzeuge

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Maschinen und Komponenten

Werkzeuge für die Kunststoffverarbeitung

Biokunststoffe

Kunststoff Werkstoffe

Spritzgieß-Sonderverfahren

Nachhaltigkeit

Umweltmanagement

Spritzgießsimulation

Simulation

Schnecken und Plastifiziersysteme

Spritzgießmaschinen

Industrie 4.0 für die Kunststoffverarbeitung

Machine Learning / Künstliche Intelligenz für die spanende Fertigung

Industrie 4.0 für die spanende Fertigung

Kunststoff-Recycling

Kunststoff-Aufbereitung

Lasermarkieren

Oberflächentechnik

Laserbearbeitungen

Inline- / Online-Messsysteme

Qualitätssicherung

Qualitätssicherung Kunststoff

Kreislaufwirtschaft

There Is More beyond the Horizon

Guido Frohnhaus has been Managing Director Technology & Engineering at Arburg for a good two years now. The pandemic restrictions meant that he has made very few appearances outside the company so far, but, as he says himself, he spent the time getting to know the in-house processes at all levels and in great detail. In this interview with Kunststoffe, the 52-year-old talks about the course he plans to set and how crucial the high level of in-house manufacturing and programming expertise is for the company’s independence.

16:9

Doriat, Clemens, Dr.

“Gestica Will Be the Fixed Star in the Customer’s Universe”

Time to take stock: in what condition and with what agenda is the industry presenting itself after two-and-a-half years of a difficult climate? We have conducted a survey: insights into the dominant themes of the age.

Preview of K 2022: Kunststoffe Questionnaire on the Situation in Injection Molding Machine Construction

Steuerungen (Hardware und Software)

Automatisierungstechnik

Messe K-Kunststoffmesse

kunststoffe-international.com

Mess-, Steuer- und Regelgeräte

Energieeffizienz

Kunststoff-Rezyklat

Harsh Realities

In an online survey, representatives of the plastics industry formulated their expectations toward the Plastics Innovation Center 4.0 (PIC 4.0).

Wordcloud generated from the answers to the open question concerning the most important use cases for PIC 4.0

Part 5 of the Series: Practical Demonstrators for the Plastics Innovation Center 4.0

Messdatenerfassung und -verarbeitung

Prozessoptimierung

Prozessmanagement

Machine Learning

Datenanalyse

Focus on the User Benefit

The digital shadow is the core concept of the Cluster of Excellence “Internet of Production” at RWTH Aachen University. It represents the data trace of an asset to describe its real behavior. In the Plastics Innovation Center 4.0 (PIC 4.0), digital shadows, e.g. the data trace of a sensor, are used to optimize processes taking into account real behavior and to determine simulation quality.

The construction of the PIC 4.0 proceeds and throws its shadow on the Campus Melaten.

Part 7 of the Series: How the Digital Shadow Enlightens Real Processes in the PIC 4.0

Sensorik für Kunststoff-Verarbeitungsmaschinen

Digitaler Zwilling

Out of the Shadow into the Light

Since 2007, one major construction project has followed another at Arburg in Lossburg, Germany: customer center, assembly hall, tradeshow logistics hall, training center and currently the next assembly hall. While environmentally friendly construction and production methods have long been established at the site, the company is now announcing an eco-efficiency program for the injection molding world, bearing the name “Arburg Green World.”

Gerhard Böhm, Sales Director at Arburg (left), and Michael Hehl, Managing Partner: “We have understood the challenge.” 

Arburg Is Pursuing a Closed Value Chain for Plastics

Ressourcenmanagement

Produktion

Green Wave

The latest trend in digitization  is the Artificial Intelligence of Things. It amounts to “marrying” Artificial Intelligence with the Internet of Things. In the following interview, Martin Dimmler and Martin Rugfelt discuss how companies can profit from AIoT and what plastics manufacturers can learn from its pioneers in other industries.

Where Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) is used, value-adding opportunities for more efficiency, quality, and thus higher sales can be realized in every industry

Artificial Intelligence of Things: Trends and Models for the Plastics Industry

Vernetzung / Cloudlösung für die Kunststoffverarbeitung

IoT-Plattformen für die Qualitätssicherung

Fernwartung / Ferndiagnose

Instandhaltung

Produkt- / anbieterspezifische Automatisierung

Automatisierungszellen

Fertigungsautomation

IoT-Plattformen für die Kunststoffverarbeitung

“Intelligent Automation Brings Systems Closer to their Optimum”

The Circular Economy is not only the theme topic at the K 2019. It is also the “green” thread running through the fair exhibit by Engel, the provider of injection molding machines and integrated system solutions. Industry 4.0 is turning out to be a driving force for recycling. This is a most timely insight, since the branch is in for several economically cool years.

Dr. Stefan Engleder, CEO of the Engel Group: “The plastics industry bears a  global responsibility.”

Engel Supports Strong Involvement by the Plastics Industry in a Circular Economy

Verbundwerkstoffe / Werkstoffverbunde

Co-Injektion (Barriere-/Sandwich-Spritzgießen)

Organobleche (gewebeverstärkte Thermoplast-Halbzeuge)

Halbzeuge und Zwischenprodukte

Kunststoff-Halbzeuge

A Second Life for Plastics

Paint bucket or A-pillar finisher? In our thoughts and attribution of value, packaging items and high-tech components often represent opposites. Yet the two can complement one another – when you look at used packaging as a valuable raw material. At the fair, KraussMaffei will be showing the concept for a closed material cycle and is making plastics processing sustainable through this.

First a bucket or another plastic product, then raw material for further processing: the shredded post-industrial material

At the K, KraussMaffei Will Be Showing the Cycle from Product to Upcycling  to a New Product

Smart Factory

Laserbeschriftung

Rückverfolgbarkeit, Traceability

Qualitätsmanagement

Handling, Handhabungstechnik

Zerkleinerungsmaschinen

Greifer für die Kunststofftechnik

Compoundieren

Today Packaging,  Tomorrow Raw Material

Pascal Laborde has been in charge of the French Arburg subsidiary in Aulnay-sous-Bois since 1 November 2020. His main objectives are to further develop the successful business in France and to continue to advance the excellent reputation Arburg enjoys as a machine builder and partner for the plastics processing industry.

Pascal Laborde has been in charge of the Arburg subsidiary in France since 1 November 2020.

Kunststoffverarbeitung

Dienstleistungen

Lohnfertigung

New Managing Director for Arburg France

The central control unit of the injection-molding machine is used by the machine operator for control, regulation and optimization of the entire production process. In order to directly integrate external systems as well as proprietary solutions that do not have a standardized interface, Engel uses a technology that is already widespread in day-to-day routine. Via a browser, the new Webviewer can be reliably integrated into the CC300 control panel of the injection-molding machines.

The Webviewer in the machine control system integrates not only ancillary equipment  with web interfaces, but also data from internal and external systems that are accessible via browsers. 

New Webviewer Merges Web and Control Applications

Bedienterminals

Computer Hardware

Central Control Unit Makes Use  of Web Technology

Part 2 of the series on the Plastics Innovation Center 4.0 (PIC 4.0) at RWTH Aachen describes the procedure by which industrial use cases of a Smart Factory are identified and converted into real testbeds within the PIC 4.0.

The PIC 4.0 extends the infrastructure of the Institute for Plastics Processing in Industry and Craft at RWTH Aachen University

PIC 4.0 Elaborates Holistic Solutions for Industrial Demands

Use Cases of Digitized Plastics Processing

Maintaining competitiveness while producing in Germany requires not only cost-efficient production, but also high-quality products. Vorwerk Elektrowerke is accepting this challenge. In collaboration with the Institute of Product Engineering at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, the company is testing a 100 % inline quality monitoring system as well as a quality prediction using machine learning.

Customers who choose the Kobold VK 200 vacuum cleaner expect top quality. To ensure this, efforts for the introduction of Industry 4.0 measures are taken in the production plant in Wuppertal, Germany

Successfully Managing Digital Transformation with Automation and Artificial Intelligence

Kameras, intelligente

Bildverarbeitung

Inline Quality Monitoring and  Data-Based Quality Prediction

Because it has not yet been possible to exploit the full potential of digitization in plastics processing, the Institute for Plastics Processing at RWTH Aachen University is building a new application-oriented research infrastructure along the lines of a Smart Factory. Kunststoffe is accompanying the building of the Plastics Innovation Center 4.0 with a series of publications. Part 1 describes the concept and the initial demands on the physical infrastructure.

Visionary overall picture of the expanded IKV in future, supplemented by the Plastics Innovation Center 4.0

The Plastics Innovation Center 4.0 Is under Construction at the Campus Melaten in Aachen, Germany

Central Hub for Digitization  in Plastics Processing

Munich-based mechanical engineering group KraussMaffei is repositioning itself and uniting all divisions under a single brand. At a time of accelerated technological change, the company is increasing its efforts to develop new products for digital solutions and new business models – and that includes plastics recycling.

Everything remains different: Dr. Frank Stieler, CEO of KraussMaffei

KraussMaffei Consolidates Three Divisions and the Previous Group Brands under a Single Brand

Extrusion

Spritzgießmaschinen, allgemein

Moving with the Times

From the Insulin Pen Cap to the Automotive Door Module

 At KraussMaffei’s booth, automotive door modules are produced from former caps of insulin pens. The system supplier is presenting not only the machine hardware necessary for this but also new digital solutions.

At KraussMaffei’s booth, automotive door modules are produced from former caps of insulin pens. The system supplier is presenting not only the machine hardware necessary for this but also new digital solutions with which high savings can be achieved in both the energy consumption and carbon footprint.

The global demand for disposable articles, particularly in the health sector, is huge. The products are often only used briefly and are not contaminated much. Ideal prerequisites therefore for using them afterwards as raw materials for parts with a longer lifetime. At KraussMaffei’s booth, automotive door modules are produced from former caps of insulin pens. The system supplier is presenting not only the machine hardware necessary for this but also new digital solutions with which high savings can be achieved in both the energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Tradeshow visitors can observe the entire sequence (Fig.): an all-electric injection molding machine PX 200–1400 produces 96 caps per shot for an insulin pen of medical grade virgin PP. The caps – when shredded – form the basis for the upcycling process through the ZE 28 BluePower twin-screw extruder. Here, various additives such as adhesion promoters and liquid pigments are added, mixed and homogenized. The recompound that is thus obtained passes to the next injection molding machine, a servohydraulic powerMolding 1300–11900, with a clamping force of 13,000 kN. This newly developed series is based on the tried-and-tested twin-platen technology, which, thanks to its highly standardized range of optional extras, has an outstanding track record as a cost-effective model especially for close-to-standard applications.

Besides the powerMolding, the counterpart of the tried-and-tested GX series, KraussMaffei is presenting another innovation in Europe, the precisionMolding. Analogously, it is the basic machine, with the reduced range of options of the all-electric PX series. Both have already been introduced in Asia and are especially suitable for standard applications. Advantage for customers: the basic machine permits short lead times.

Lower Carbon Footprint,  Lower Energy Costs

By its own account, KraussMaffei is the only manufacturer to offer complete hardware for the material loop – supplemented with digital products that make the circular economy much more efficient than before. Ultimately, the initial investment in a new injection molding machine only makes up about 10 to 20 % of the life cycle costs. The rest is accounted for by the actual operation. That means that reducing the outlays for energy, maintenance etc. not only benefits the environment but also improves the efficiency.

In the circular application, all the process data relevant to sustainability are gathered and presented, so that it is always clear how much CO2 could be saved by recycling compared to the use of virgin material. Together with Motan, for example, an application was developed, for example, which shows what energy consumption occurs per process step. It allows the processor to improve energy consumption in a targeted way. The digital product APCplus has been further developed and is now more suitable for recyclates. It reduces rejects through automatic correction under changing ambient conditions during the injection molding process. On start-up of the machine, the setpoint process is reached faster and rejects are thereby also significantly reduced.

The dataXplorer casts a glance into the process depth by collecting up to 500 machine signals in real time, every second millisecond, and thereby serves as a basis for measuring the carbon footprint. Deviations from predefined tolerance ranges can be immediately discovered in this way. In addition, there are some digital products developed with customers, for example processSupport and liveCare. One solution automatically identifies anomalies in the production process earlier than ever; the other continuously monitors and visualizes wear states.

A truly large exhibit – cost-saving processing of three different recyclates in the DCIM (direct compounding injection molding) process – is described in a detailed article from page 74.

In addition, KraussMaffei is introducing a new system for naming its products. Specifically, new machines will in future receive one of four suffixes: ‘pioneer’ for line and system solutions, ‘purity’ for products in the field of circular economy, ‘power’ for hydraulic injection molding machines and extruders and finally ‘precision’ for electric injection molding machines, as well as automation and downstream products, such as mixing and pipe heads.

<b>K 2022: Hall 15, booth C15/C24-D24</b>

KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH 

https://www.krauss-maffei.com

Digital solutions are an essential component of the material loop from the insulin pen cap to the car door module.