PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2019

CAPS & CLOSURES 24 PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 01+02/19 www.petpla.net The inline quality lab “We bring the quality lab to the production line!” Gerd Fuhrmann, CEO of Intravis GmbH, announces as he introduces his company’s future strategy for Industry 4.0 in the field of cap inspection. The reason for this was the product presentation of the new CapWatcher Q-Line, where visitors also were introduced to the CapFeeder, the first in- house at Intravis manufactured cap sorter system. Industry 4.0 is and will remain the dominant topic in the industry. According to a survey conducted in 2018 among more than 300 companies in the indus- try, the goals pursued by Industry 4.0 applications are above all the improve- ment of processes, higher capacity utili- sation and faster implementation of indi- vidual customer requirements. If Industry 4.0 should mainly achieve the optimi- sation of processes in manufacturing companies, vision quality inspection is currently the main focus of the process. By constantly inspecting and measur- ing the produced objects, the quality of the processes can be determined in the end. Only good processes lead to good quality. And if you succeed in deriving recommendations for actions from the measurement results, then we are on a quick path to the “Smart Factory”. In quality labs, the various charac- teristics of an object are often measured partly-mechanically or by hand in exten- sive but laborious work. After a certain time, relevant data is collected and can be back tracked to a single object which then enables conclusions about the entire process to be drawn. Wouldn’t it be better to gain large amounts of data from innumerable produced objects within a very short time and then be able to directly draw conclusions about the process? This thought triggered the development of the inline quality control, which is playing an increas- ingly important role today. The aim was to collect meaningful measured values quickly, comprehensively and across all produced objects in order to be able to draw well-founded conclusions about the quality of the process. Intravis GmbH, supplier of inspec- tion solutions for the plastic packaging industry has always gone beyond solely sorting faulty products with its systems. Rather, it has always gathered exten- sive measurement data, which, provided at the right time, helps to increase the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of the production plant. Gerd Fuhrmann says: “We don’t want to just collect data with our systems. We also want to detect even minimal trends directly.” Based on these data and trends, an experienced machine operator or even a self-regulating injection moulding machine can adjust the processes so that defective parts are virtually elimi- nated. “Intravis has already shown how a self-regulating process, also known as closed loop, can look like at Drink- tec 2017 in a showcase together with Netstal Maschinen-AG (see also PET- planet Insider 4/18). Thanks to different interfaces such as OPC-UA, Profibus, Shotscope or even MQTT, the inspec- tion system measurement data can be made available to all parties involved in the process, from machine control center to any other systems on the production line. Furthermore, thanks to the data connection, it is also possible to trans- mit test orders from the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to the inspec- tion system. This saves time, optimises processes and minimises potential sources of error. The Intravis systems therefore represent an interface in their own right, namely between planning and process data. The CapWatcher Q-Line The new CapWatcher Q-Line is an important piece to the puzzle in Intravis’ future Industry 4.0 strategy. The newest system in this line was launched on November 2018 at a major premiere for around 60 invited guests from the plastics industry, politics and press. Thanks to many new developments, it is claimed to meet the demand for high- precision measurements. “For good, high-precision measurement, a stable positioning of the closure is helpful. Belt transport is currently the best choice, which is why we have been using our double track belt technology for a long time,” explains Klaus Schönhoff, CTO of Intravis when describing the impor- tance of positioning. But Intravis offers even more. “For the first time in the new generation of the CapWatcher Q-Line, we have installed our new, positive- locking singularisation system. This way, we can guarantee positioning that is accurate to the millimeter and even more precise measurements later on,” says Schönhoff. A positive side effect here: due to the form-fitting handling of the closure from the side, an even more gentle treat- ment of closures of all tamper evident band variants is possible. In addition to improving positioning, the CapWatcher Q-Line offers even more innovations. The focus has been on the testing of functional elements, to always enable faultless and fully functional closures reach the consumer. For example, to prevent closures from being processed with incompletely ejected or damaged threads, the system checks the com- plete thread area with a special in- house developed imaging. The testing of the sealing elements has also been improved. Smallest notches or missing material – regardless of one or two- piece closures – can lead to uncontrolled degassing or the ingress of foreign sub- stances. To prevent this, two independ- ent inspection stations check the sealing elements for their functionality. An essential element of the function- ality of closures is a perfect tamper evi- dent band. On one hand, it has to make sure that a closure hasn’t been opened already; on the other hand, the end user should be able to open the closure Intravis’ new CapFeeder with a capacity of up to 288,000 cph CAPS & CLOSURES