MANAGEMENT | INDUSTRY 4.0
Right: Plant data should be an appreciating asset, according to industrial automations specialist Oden
“FME is designed specifically for manufacturing
colorants including masterbatch, concentrate, dry colour and liquid colours. FME is also available in a version for plastics compounders to maintain compounding formulas and their specifications, schedule extruders, mixers and pulverisers,” he says. After a formula is created with the software, it is
tracked from sales through production to delivery. Inventory is automatically updated including re-order notification. Production batch cards, material purchase orders and customer invoices are all created within Formulas Made Easy. By sharing information through a password
protected network, formulas, pricing and order status are instantly available to all appropriate departments. All are completely secure, while manual filing, lost formulas and mathematical errors are eliminated. “By automating formula mainte- nance, Formulas Made Easy reduces labour costs, reduces errors, improves customer service and assists in maintaining ISO compliance,” he says. Formulas Made Easy is designed for multiple plants or single locations. Muller says many com- pounders he has worked with have difficulty realising how little control they have over their compounding process. “Some compounders use QuickBooks or nothing at all,” he says. He recalls demonstrating his system to a very large com- pounder that had invested over one million dollars in converting a pharmaceutical ERP to track and cost their compounds. “My system complete, with on-site installation, was $50,000 at that time,” he adds.
Beyond ERP But plant control doesn’t end at ERP. Oden Technologies describes itself as “an Industry 4.0 company” combining industrial hardware, wireless connectivity, and big data architecture into one simple platform so all manufacturers can analyse and optimise their production, from any device. Willem Sundblad, CEO of Oden, emphasises the
importance of obtaining good data from produc- tion and using it well, noting that the cost of poor quality in manufacturing can be massive. In a recent webinar, he said that in most factories, 10-20% of revenues are lost to the cost of poor quality. That is through the time taken to remake parts, investigate quality failures, the scrap itself, and so on. “Scada, ERP, MES, QA systems are not built to give you an intelligent system,” he said. “We have to think in a different way.” Sundblad claims that with other data collecting
systems, data has been a depreciating asset: the more data they take in, the slower they become. “If you build your architecture right, data becomes an
36 COMPOUNDING WORLD | May 2019
appreciating asset, because the marginal cost of storing it is so low,” he said.
Such a system can be installed quickly (days
rather than months), and the costs of storing data are low. Small data collection devices plugged into machines or PLCs send information wirelessly to a central platform. “There’s a staggering opportunity for efficiency and production leaps by introducing machines to the power of IoT and cloud analytics,” Sundblad says. Earlier this year, Oden launched a partner
programme to help machinery manufacturers eliminate unplanned downtime at their customers. Oden’s Vice President of Business Development Steve Braig (previously with injection moulding technology companies Engel and Trexel) is overseeing the programme. Using Oden’s platform, machine makers can
provide their customers with real-time alerts and fix equipment before it fails, effectively eliminating unplanned downtime. “Their customers will benefit from the option to outsource the maintenance and repair of their assets to the equipment maker, reducing their MRO costs and increasing machine availability,” says Sundblad. Predictive analytics in the Oden platform can be applied to monitoring critical machine components and sub-systems of production, delivering real-time insights into the inner workings of their equipment, and predictive maintenance post-sale.
CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: �
www.aimplas.net �
www.dataprophet.com �
www.coperion.com �
www.kraussmaffeiberstorff.com �
www.entek.com �
www.cyframe.com �
www.plasticsconsulting.com �
www.oden.io
www.compoundingworld.com
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
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