FEATURE SENSORS & SENSING SYSTEMS
benefits in low wastage, minimal line downtime and better quality control. Quality inspection is integral and even 3D vision cameras are easy to ‘plug and play’. Sensor intelligence now means
complex data processing and advanced functions can be embedded in the sensor unit itself. With routine raw data processing tasks performed in real time by Smart Sensors at machine level around the factory, time is saved; and factory network distributed control systems are freed from processing bottlenecks between sensors and the HMI or PLC. The processed data and resulting actions can be made available for recording, safety, traceability and quality control purposes to be overseen at the central system level.
SENSOR INTELLIGENCE: the key to achieving ‘Batch Size 1’?
David Hannaby, SICK UK industrial sensor specialist,
explores how the development of intelligent sensors is providing new opportunities for flexible automated manufacturing in the food industry and facilitating
productivity with smaller and smaller batch sizes – perhaps even down to a theoretical limit of ‘Batch Size 1’
W
ith today’s advanced automotive manufacturing, you can order a
new car that is practically unique to your specifications. But if a ‘Batch size of 1’ could be the norm for one high volume UK manufacturing sector, how about the others? How does the trend apply to food and beverage manufacture where large volumes and small margins traditionally go hand in hand? In this sector, consumer demand is becoming more diverse as the market moves towards greater choice and freshness, with premium, healthy and free-from alternatives. With Industry 4.0, or the ‘Smart Factory’, ever greater product variation, combined with more responsive, frequent and smaller deliveries – to store or home – becomes the norm. In addition, connectivity and data sharing between machines, not only in the production plant itself but across the supply chain, is practically seamless. On a flexible, automated production line
armed with intelligent sensors, and fully track and trace product marking from raw ingredients to finished packs, it is
20 MAY 2016 | DESIGN SOLUTIONS
perfectly feasible for, say, a cook-in sauce manufacturer to change between batches of pasta sauce on a line packing 50 jars in shrink-wrapped trays without having to stop and reset the line at all. It is even possible to pack trays of three
different flavours in the ratio of, perhaps, 4:3:2 or 6:4:3, to suit a store’s demand. A soft drink bottler could also combine cola, ginger beer and lemonade together to match a store’s previous purchasing habits or to support a specific promotion.
BUILT-IN INTELLIGENCE Smart Sensors are the glue that holds together automated environments. While the Smart Factory achieves communication between machines, the corresponding goal of sensor technology must be to first sense any object, no matter what it is, or what the environmental conditions are. The accuracy and consistency now
achievable with modern sensing means tasks such as picking, placing, labelling and code-reading can be performed at production speeds, to higher performance levels than ever before, with resultant
With Industry 4.0, or the ‘Smart Factory’, ever greater product variation, combined with more responsive, frequent and smaller deliveries – to store or home – becomes the norm
SMART COMMUNICATIONS With smarter communications comes the option to achieve rapid, automated product changeovers on a production line. Triggered by the sensor detecting a particular product variant – label colour, bottle height, etc. – the conveyor and all associated machines in the system can be reset without have to stop and restart the line. Changes are automatically adapted for with minimal set up and disruption. With this level of flexible control, downtime and outage become rarities, and Clean-In-Place could even be programmed in. The Smart Sensors, however, also need to be reliable and quick to replace and programme. Easy mounting, quick teach in, and automatic downloading of pre-set parameters to a replacement device, are all pre-requisites. A faulty sensor can be diagnosed, located and exchanged and commissioned in a matter of minutes.
MEETING THE CHALLENGE Many of the sensing technologies that facilitate Industry 4.0 already exist – the challenge will be for manufacturers to have the vision to seize the opportunities. In the future, sensor manufacturers, integrators and OEMs are likely to work more closely together as co-engineers and co-inventors of applications that can adapt and integrate smart technologies into existing production lines.
SICK (UK) T: 01727 831121
www.sick.com
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