EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 09/22 www.petpla.net 64 Automatic adjustments June 14, 2022 We met: Dr Johannes Kilian, Vice President Process Technology and inject 4.0, Engel Ivica Puskaric, Sales Director Packaging, Engel What happens when cap moulds are frequently being changed and the ideal machine mould combination is not always achieved? And what if the energy efficiency of an entire facility, which has been designed and built at great expense, declines dramatically? And what if the raw material includes recycling material and causes process instabilities? We spoke to Dr Johannes Kilian, Plasticising Systems and Recycling Development and Ivica Puskaric, Sales Director, Packaging, both of whom work for Engel. As an innovation leader when it comes to injection moulding machines, Engel is a key player in the cap production sector. The e-cap series, which has been specially developed for cap manufacture with its water-cooled electric and hydraulic nozzle drives, as well as hybrid ejector, can achieve cycle times of less than two seconds. Perfect alignment of the mould size and the injection moulding machine can secure energy savings of up to 50% compared to other machine designs. However, experience has shown that the perfect mould does not always fit on the best machine. Large caps with few cavities and small cap diameters with many cavities are often produced on the same mould tables, particularly in companies where many mould changes occur. And if there is no machine available, a small mould may well be fitted to a large unit. In addition, due to the upcoming amount of recycling material the raw material viscosity changes much higher compared to virgin material production. This leads to process instabilities and necessary process adaptions. An experienced machine setter can overcome these challenges and still produce high-quality caps. However, this tends to result in a significant reduction in performance. Generally, little attention is paid to the lowest possible clamping force. The rule of thumb here will be to get the machine producing whatever is possible. This leads to increased capping and an unnecessary use of energy. A similar approach is taken in relation to cooling. “A lot goes a long way”. Of course, this also results in needless energy consumption. With Engel’s new iQ clamp control, the machine automatically optimises the clamping force. Using injection pressure and mould breathing signal, the machine is able to quickly find the lowest possible clamping force to produce high-quality caps within the shortest time cycle without any additional sensors in the mould. A manual approach to achieve the minimum required clamping force would need several cycles and additional measurement equipment. It is a similar picture when it comes to cooling. Here too, “full power” is normally used. The iQ flow control measures differences in pressure for each cooling cycle and makes adjustments where necessary. In combination with other smartly regulated cooling equipment, this results in optimum cooling results with significantly reduced energy consumption and little or no adverse impact on cooling times. Tour Sponsors: Hall 15 Booth B42-C58 “The results of the test series are unambiguous and repeatable. Thanks to the iQ weight control software, weight fl uctuations were reduced from 0.02 g to 0.003 g. This is equivalent to a weight constancy improvement of 85%. We are now totally satisfi ed with a reject rate of 0.047%. Based on this, we have been able to re-duce the quality control overhead, and improve the effi ciency of the manufacturing process.” Frank Breunig, Initiative, Project & Process Engineer, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH The Editourmobil at Engel, Schwertberg, Austria. Above: Dr Gerhard Dimmler; left: Alexander Büchler, Publisher of PETplanet Insider; right: Ivica Puskaric, Sales Director, Packaging; below: CEO Stefan Engleder
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