Film & Foil Virtual slitting: cut optimization using roll editor


Dr Enrico Bischur, product manager at Dr Schenk focuses on how resources used in the production of plastic films and foils can be reduced with the help of optical quality control solutions, in particular by using a roll editor for virtual slitting.


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ustainability and the more economical use of resources are becoming increasingly important and urgent in today’s world. These topics require increased attention in the production of films and foils as well. Known and new technologies offer certain approaches to save raw materials, time and energy. This starts with the planning of production and the film slitting for customer orders. Here, software tools for ERP systems can be used to optimize the slitting for customer orders on parent rolls that have been produced or are to be produced. With these planning tools, imperfect material quality can be taken into account based on statistical key figures.


A further step to optimize waste is to optically inspect 100% of the material produced and monitor the quality. Even if a roll does not meet the quality criteria, not necessarily the entire roll is a low-quality roll. For each roll, the exact areas for poor quality can be determined. If the material of the parent roll is 100% inspected by an inspection system, the quality of the roll can already be determined during production by an online live qualification. The roll quality on the basis of total defects per roll or defect density per sqm may be set as required


in a flexible way. All detected types of defects, such as insects, scratches, holes, contamination, coating defects may be taken into account separately in the quality evaluation. Based on the inspection results and the roll qualification, an immediate suitable response is possible during the production process. Assuming there are not good areas on a roll, that roll can be produced longer by the corresponding number of meters to compensate for poor areas.


Any numbers of grades or levels for the final quality are available. The quality grade determines the subsequent processing. The most basic case involves the qualities ‘good’ and ‘not good’. Whereby each “not good” roll could/should be checked or recycled. The subsequent quality control of the rolls can be done purely virtually, based on the results of the inspection and the defects with their size, type and position on the roll.


The information gained from the optical inspection process can be used for slitting optimization. Standard slitting tools do not provide this functionality.


The roll editor from Dr. Schenk provides a solution to close this gap. The data of the inspection process of the parent roll can be


reviewed and the subsequent slitting of the roll can be optimised based on its data. Rolls that do not meet the required quality specification due to defects in the material are virtually slit to a new size and quality. This improves the overall product quality for customer order processing and avoids or reduces the risk of customer claims. The new sub-rolls can afterwards be saved in the database. In addition, reports can be generated that provide instructions for the operators on how to cut the roles. To ensure the acceptance of this workflow and to limit extra workload, an additional grading of the quality levels can be introduced. By specifying and defining an additional quality level “for rework”, only rolls can be selected for which further use is appropriate and economical.


Material, energy and labour costs can be reduced by this simple measure in the everyday production of films and their slitting for the customers. Through the inspection of the film, the definition of different qualities, review and virtual slitting optimisation, the initially mentioned goal ‘sustainability and the more economical use of resources’ can be achieved by means of the roll


editor. Xwww.drschenk.com


24


September 2022


www.convertermag.com


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