PROCESS CONTROL | MACHINERY
Taking control to new levels
New developments in process control and the take-up of Industry 4.0 strategies are having a significant influence on the plastic compounding industry, writes Mark Holmes
Advances in process control for compounding and masterbatch production have accelerated through the adoption of Industry 4.0 practices and are likely to see further gains in the future through the application of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Both are providing, and have the potential to provide, valuable benefits in areas ranging from quality control and predictive maintenance to skill short- ages and supply chain management. According to the AI-powered manufacturing analytics provider Oden Technologies, workforce skill and availability, price inflation, global competi- tion and supply chain challenges are key drivers of Industry 4.0 innovation and adoption in com- pounding and masterbatch production. “In the past few years, manufacturers have seen significant demand that required a high level of capacity improvement,” says Willem Sundblad, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder. “In that type of
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environment, some of these challenges can be traded off for others. Now, demand has generally decreased, and the true challenge out of this switch has been how do we make our factories as efficient as possible, regardless of the macro environment. Whether that is driven from cost pressures, or because they need to deliver for their customers. We are seeing the manufacturers who invested in efficiency gains via Industry 4.0 to meet capacity needs early come out as winners.” Oden highlights a number of specific issues in compounding that require new process control solu- tions, most notably the lag between product and process. It says that a real opportunity for compound manufacturers lies in the ability to reduce or eliminate the lag between understanding the quality of the product produced, and the production process itself. This lag creates unnecessary risk of failures and increased inefficiencies; being able to
Main image: Artificial intelligence and augment- ed reality are supporting development of control innovations such as remote and predictive maintenance
August 2023 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 47
IMAGE: FEDDEM
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