FOOD & BEVERAGE INDUSTRY FOCUS
QUICKENING THE TIME TO MARKET
A manufacturer of cheese cutting equipment has updated its control solution with an open architecture machine automation controller from Omron. This has resulted in a range of benefits for both the company and its customers
based upon the Sysmac NJ, allowing the company to benefit from its openness and machine component synergy. Alan Smith, field application engineer for
W
hen Newtech, a supplier of ultrasonic cheese cutters for the
global food industry, made the decision to bring its machine coding operation in- house it resulted in the company looking for a new control solution to offer greater ease of programmability as well as a modern, compact design to enhance its product offering. “We were also looking for reliability and,
having worked with Omron for over ten years, we felt comfortable with the quality of its products. We know that Omron can provide state of the art, reliable and cost effective solutions that allow us to offer our customers high levels of portion weight control, high output and good levels of consistency, and it also offers global product support,” explained Phil Waters, sales manager at Newtech. “We needed a programming environment that would allow for fast configuration, programming and offline simulation, to meet our often tight delivery timescales. Omron’s Sysmac NJ controller offered all of this.”
THE SYSMAC FAMILY The Sysmac NJ, which forms part of the Sysmac automation platform, provides synergy with the range of Sysmac devices, including the variable speed drives, servos and remote input/output systems used by Newtech in its machines. So, the move to Sysmac NJ has also offered a good foundation for more of its future control systems to be
Above: Omron’s Sysmac NJ controller has significantly reduced programming and configuration of Newtech’s Autosonic-E cheese cutting machine
Above right: open automation architecture speeds up time to market for food sector OEM
Omron Electronics, commented, “The Sysmac NJ allows Newtech to do a lot more ‘clever things’ with their machines. A big feature for them was the single programming environment. Sysmac Studio features a single programming environment that allows the various control architectures to be linked together.” This simplifies programming, increasing application development productivity and helping to speed up time to market for product developments. “The Sysmac NJ is a truly open system,
using the high speed EtherCAT network to link to a huge range of devices. It also runs PLCopen motion function blocks, and adheres to the IEC 61131 programming standard,” continued Smith. This makes migration easier and the code is more reliable and better structured, resulting in lower machine maintenance costs.
“The fact that we can now offer a
machine with remote diagnostic capabilities will give us a competitive advantage, because many food producers are not as self-sufficient - in terms of engineering support - as other manufacturers, making the remote monitoring capabilities more important. The food sector focuses more on production and product, so anything we can offer that provides peace of mind regarding machine maintenance is a benefit,” concluded Waters.
Omron Electronics
www.industrial.omron.co.uk T: 01908 258 253
Enter 209 COMBINING SPEED AND VERSATILITY
After using an automatic collation and shrink wrapping machine developed and supplied by Linkx Systems for around three years, a food manufacturer has now added a second Linkx machine to its teabag production line. A key feature of the new machine is its high operating speed of 28 cycles per
minute, which Linkx has achieved by making effective use of the latest servo drive and automation technologies. Not only does this high speed maximise the throughput of the machine, it also allows it to perform the 4 x 1 collation that is needed for the latest slim shelf ready packs, which are becoming increasingly popular with retailers. A further development provided by the new machine is automatic splicing
for the rolls of shrink wrap film. This is achieved by a new design for the film cradles, which means that they can be withdrawn from the machine to allow easy access. Throughout the development and construction of the new machine, the engineers at Linkx Systems worked
closely with their counterparts to devise refinements that would optimise every aspect of the machine’s operation. As a result, the new machine is more ergonomic and easier to use than its predecessor. Like the original, the new machine receives the cartons of teabags from the production line, turns them on
end, collates them on a tray, glues the tray and then provides an overall shrink wrap. It handles four different sizes of carton, which between them need 11 different collation patterns. Size changes are fast and highly automated, eliminating the need for manual adjustment and ensuring that machine up-time is maximised.
Linkx Systems
www.linkxpackaging.com T: 01502 713 777 Enter 210
/AUTOMATION
AUTOMATION | APRIL 2014 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56