Packaging machine

OEE is the product of availability, performance and quality, expressed as a percentage. Availability shows how long the machine actually produces, performance whether it maintains its optimum speed, and quality the share of defect-free units. A value of 100 percent means production without interruption, at maximum speed and without defects. At a chocolate manufacturer, the solution from Perinet and Zentinel records the required values automatically on the packaging lines.

A device on the line records power and process data and automatically assigns it to the states production, idle and standstill. A manufacturer of beverage and food packaging had previously documented stoppages by hand, which made systematic root cause analysis almost impossible. With the in.hub HUB-EN200 on six lines, unplanned stoppages fell by 15%. The investment of EUR 5,900 paid for itself within four months.

Remote monitoring is secure when an industrial router with a built-in firewall connects the machine to the cloud over an encrypted link. Niverplast, a manufacturer of bag-in-box machines, had its own remote access solution, which customers rejected because its security was not certified. Today, IXON routers connect the controllers via OPC UA or Modbus and send the data to the AWS cloud via MQTT. Customers get protected access to a portal with different user rights.

Typical services are configuration assistants, customer portals with key figures and remote access for service. MULTIVAC developed the Pack Pilot with diva-e: instead of entering technical parameters, the operator selects the product and the upper and lower film, and the rule set in the Microsoft Azure cloud supplies the finished machine settings. In the myMULTIVAC portal, customers see availability and bottlenecks. Changeover times are shorter, and service responds much faster thanks to remote access to the data.