TECHNOLOGY REVIEW | NPE 2018
AMI’s editorial team discovered emerging trends and innovations in technology and materials at NPE 2018 in Orlando, Florida, earlier this month. We review North America’s biggest show over the next few pages
Industry 4.0 comes to America
NPE 2018 took place in Orlando, Florida from May 7 to 11, providing a showcase of the latest tech- nologies and materials for the North American plastics market. Since the last NPE show in 2015, Industry 4.0 has risen from its European origins to become a trend influencing the global technology sector, and much was discussed at NPE 2018 about its growing importance for processors, technology suppliers and the plastics industry as a whole. Business topics raised during the exhibition ranged from US trade policy and sales growth in the North American injection moulding market to recycling and sustainability. At NPE’s opening Press Breakfast, the Plastics Industry Association touched on some of these points. Global standardisation in Industry 4.0 is crucial to its successful functioning, said Bill Carteaux, president and CEO of the association, which is the organiser of NPE. He told journalists that key people from plastics machinery associa- tions from all around the world were gathering for a key meeting and dinner during the week of NPE 2018. Also, Euromap 77, the first Industry 4.0 standard for digital interfaces, was released. Based on the OPC-UA protocol, Euromap 77 covers data exchange between injection moulding machines and manufacturing execution systems.
www.injectionworld.com
The uptake of Industry 4.0-enabled machinery and equipment will “take some time”, said David Preusse, President of Wittmann Battenfeld USA, at Wittmann Group’s NPE press conference. Injec- tion moulders are not going to scrap their existing machine fleet, so the process of adoption will be gradual. He also noted reluctance among the IT staff at injection moulders due to concerns over data security. But his presentation was upbeat, and he said the WiBa Connect app has been active on 7,000 Wittmann Battenfeld machines. “Are people really using it [Wittmann 4.0, the
group’s Industry 4.0 functionality]? We do have many customers using it in part and increasingly using all of it,” he said. He indicated the connectiv- ity benefit of Industry 4.0 in an example of an automotive moulder that had set up a production run, but had forgotten to switch on a temperature controller because it was in a mezzanine – some- thing which would not happen if the operator had been using a single control at the machine with connections to all auxiliary equipment. Speaking to Injection World after his presenta-
tion, Preusse said that what moulders like about using the Wittmann 4.0 system is that it is error- proof when there is a change in shift on a produc- tion run. They also like the Wittmann 4.0 plug-and-
May 2018 | INJECTION WORLD 29
Main image: NPE 2018, the biggest in the show’s history, took place at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida
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