Engel Austria will participate in Koplas 2017 under the theme “Experience the smart factory“, providing demonstrative examples of the opportunities created by digitalization and networking, and how its inject 4.0 can help to take advantage of these in a simple fashion.
inject 4.0 is Engel’s answer to the challenges of Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution. The goal is a smart factory in which production processes continuously self-optimize through the networking of production systems, the systematic use of machine, process and production data, and the deployment of decentralized, intelligent assistance systems.
Producers can thus increase the productivity and quality of their production and respond flexibly to ever faster changing requirements.
In the factory of the future, the human/machine interface plays an even bigger part than today. Self-adapting, decentralized assistance systems increase process capacity and quality, without requiring the machine operator to acquire special expertise.
During the show, Engel will be producing inject 4.0 logos on an all-electric, tie-bar-less Engel emotion 80 TL injection molding machine. The CC300 control is capable of simulating process fluctuations; the automatic readjustments by the intelligent assistance systems can then be tracked on the display of the machine.
While iQ weight control maintains consistent injected melt volume throughout the entire injection molding process, iQ clamp control monitors the mold breathing and continuously readjusts the clamping force. This way, fluctuations in the environmental conditions and in the raw material are automatically detected and compensated for within the same shot, before resulting in rejects.
iQ flow control, the third assistance system that is being presented at the Koplas, is based on e-flomo, the temperature control water manifold by Engel that monitors and documents all cooling and temperature control cycles of injection machines and independently regulates either the flow volume or the temperature difference.
iQ flow control now connects e-flomo with the temperature control unit, thus the pump speed automatically adjusts to the actual need. This results in higher energy efficiency.
Besides the machine exhibits, Engel will present its e-factory Manufacturing Execution System (MES). Tailored to the specific requirements of the injection molding industry, it achieves a great depth of vertical data integration, down to the level of individual cavities.
e-factory creates transparency, for example to optimize the utilization of a machine pool’s total capacity, or to correlate key productivity indicators with economic objectives. It becomes especially interesting when e-factory not only connects the production cells of a single site, but creates an entire worldwide production network. This allows company headquarters to also optimize processes at other sites, and to provide support even to far-away colleagues.
In order to increase the availability of machines and production cells, smart service relies on short paths, remote maintenance, and a view towards the future. The new Engel e connect.monitor thus makes it possible to analyze the condition of process critical machine components during operation, and to generate a reliable failure prognosis. This condition-based, predictive maintenance allows for the maximum use of critical machine components while still avoiding unplanned system downtime.
Source : China Plastic & Rubber Journal
