FEATURE Sustainability
Solar-powered ROBOSHOT sets Bloom-in-Box on road to net zero
F
ollowing its investment in an energy-saving FANUC ROBOSHOT injection-moulding machine, eco-conscious plastic
products manufacturer Bloom-in-Box is well on its way to becoming carbon neutral. Thanks to superior servo technology and intelligent power- regeneration capabilities, the energy- effi cient ROBOSHOT S150iA installed at Bloom-in-Box’s Burscough facility uses just 3kW per hour, permitting it to be powered exclusively by renewable solar energy. “Our goal is to become carbon neutral over the next 12-18 months,” said Tom Reardon, production co-ordinator and robotics engineer at Bloom-in-Box. “We have been working with all- electric machines for the last 20 years to reduce power consumption and emissions. Solar installations and our new FANUC ROBOSHOT were the next step to achieving this. Thanks to these investments, our current carbon emissions as a business are estimated to be less than 10 tonnes of CO2
per year, with our ultimate goal to achieve net zero.”
Born-again plastics Bloom-in-Box is a third-generation, family-run plastic injection moulding business grounded in an ethos of responsible consumption and production. A commitment to creating products with more than one life drives the company’s design and manufacturing activities and in 2018 earned Bloom-in-Box a place in the fi nal of ‘Best Recycled Plastic Product of the Year’ for its Bloomie fl oristry box. The Bloomie is made of 99% recycled material and is 100% recyclable. Any boxes that mould incorrectly are chopped up, passed through a grinder and made into security spikes. Other products made by the business include laundry pegs, scoops and measures.
Bloom-in-Box has always been an advocate of electric moulding machines on the basis that they use up to 80% less energy than their hydraulic counterparts. When signifi cant growth meant the company had reached maximum production capacity last year, it took the decision to invest in a new electric machine
12 November 2022 | Automation
in injection moulding,” said Reardon. It is well known that all-electric injection moulding machines use up to 80% less electricity than a hydraulic machine of a comparable size. FANUC’s ROBOSHOT goes even further than this; the company claims it consumes 10-15% less energy than the average all-electric machine.
Energy-efficient design
The ROBOSHOT’s best-in-category energy effi ciency can largely be attributed to a combination of FANUC’s proprietary servo technology and smart energy recovery.
“Rather than buying them in from a
Bloom-in-Box’s business is grounded in an ethos of responsible consumption and production
that would enable it to increase capacity by 25-40%. “We had reached a plateau. Our older machines were slower, causing production bottlenecks, and lacked the precise temperature control needed for working with biodegradable plastics,” recalls David Reardon, director of Bloom-in-Box. At the same time, the company had embarked on a roadmap to become carbon neutral, starting with an assessment of its carbon footprint. This revealed that electricity was its biggest source of carbon emissions, accounting for 95% of its total emissions. To address this situation, in November 2021, Bloom-in-Box installed a 40kWp solar system that feeds directly into the factory. During daylight hours this generates on average 10kW per hour, with the potential to produce even more during the summer months. Therefore, when it came to deciding which injection-moulding machine to invest in, energy effi ciency was a top consideration, alongside production speed, quality, CNC reliability and repeatability. Bloom-in-Box wanted this machine purchase to be powered exclusively by the new solar panels. The search led to FANUC’s ROBOSHOT range. “In our opinion, FANUC machines are at the top of the league for energy effi ciency
third-party manufacturer, we build our own servo drives, meaning they are as energy effi cient as is physically possible. This also enables us to specify servo drives that are the perfect match for each machine’s target performance, ensuring they deliver exactly the amount of power to the motor that it needs,” explained David Raine, ROBOSHOT sales manager UK and Ireland.
In addition, the ROBOSHOT’s advanced power regeneration feature enables intelligent energy recovery: when an axis decelerates, energy returns to the power source, adding to the overall savings. “When the equipment starts to decelerate and the motor is no longer required to drive a process, it automatically switches to being a generator, feeding the electricity that is generated back through the system to another location on the machine where it is needed,” said Raine. The 150T clamp force ROBOSHOT
S150iA in operation at Bloom-in-Box runs at 2.9-3kW per hour for a six-second cycle (the longer the cycle the less energy consumed), reducing energy consumption by 20% versus previous generation electric machines in the plastic processor’s fl eet. “This represents a huge saving both in terms of CO2
emissions and energy bills,” said Reardon. CONTACT:
FANUC
www.fanuc.eu/uk/en
automationmagazine.co.uk
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