Industry 4.0 | software
Industry 4.0 – the Internet of Things – promises to connect entire manufacturing supply chains to provide instant real- time data capture. Arburg demonstrated two “Smart Factory” examples last year
Moving towards the “Smart Factory”
We are living and working in an increasingly connected world. IT consultancy Gartner forecasts by the end of this year there will be 4.9bn internet-connected devices in use worldwide and this will rise to 25bn by 2020. That’s three devices for every person on the planet. While today the bulk of these connected devices are consumer-focused, the future is expected to see internet-connected devices become commonplace in business and manufacturing environments. The “Internet of Things”- as this trend to connected
smart products has been named in much of the English- speaking world – brings together devices (things) and communication networks (the internet) with software applications and data analysis tools. For consumers, it could mean refrigerators that automatically re-order fresh groceries or heating systems that adapt to the use of the home. For manufacturers, it opens the way for instant real-time capture of process data from every point in the supply chain to provide continuous sharing of information such as stock levels, production problems, demand levels and capacity utilisation. The creation of this “Smart Factory” concept has led
to some describing the application of this technology in manufacturing as the fourth industrial revolution and has given birth to the term in Europe of Industry 4.0. German machinery maker Arburg has been promoting
www.injectionworld.com
the benefi ts of Industry 4.0 connectivity in the plastics manufacturing environment in recent months, demon- strating how “smart” connectivity can be used in conjunc- tion with tools such as its ALS production management system to provide instantly-accessible part-specifi c data capture. The company’s most recent demonstration example was shown running at the Fakuma fair in Germany in October last year, where it produced uniquely- identifi ed offi ce scissors using a combination of an Allrounder injection moulding machine, Multilift robotic automation and Freeformer 3D printing equipment. The production example started with an individual
visitor choosing the metal scissor blanks they wanted from a selection that included left and right hand versions with either rounded or pointed tips. That selection was then recorded to a smart card and a DMC code generated to identify that individual product before the manufacturing process commenced. A human operator then loaded the selected scissor
blades into a robot gripper, which loaded the blank into the 1+1 cavity mould ready for overmoulding of the PP handles (the mould was confi gured to accept both left and right handed scissors). The handle overmoulding was carried out on a standard Allrounder 370E all-elec- tric machine on a cycle time of 60s. On removal from the mould, the previously assigned DMC code was applied to
January/February 2015 | INJECTION WORLD 57
Main image: Industry 4.0
promises high
level intelligent data capture, according to Arburg
PHOTO: ARBURG
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 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72