The social trend towards individualization creates market pressure that will permanently change the production processes. In addition, there are new technologies that can cater for the individual customer wishes for personalized goods and a larger variety of products. Production in small batches – requires companies to be more flexible in production and logistics in combination with the changes in batch runs. The number of variants brings a more frequent adaptation of the production facilities (batch change) with it: This leads to significantly increasing setup costs and times.
The goal must be to produce small batches economically. Set-up times and other reasons for interruptions in production must be minimized as much as possible . For this purpose, production equipment is required that can be adjusted quickly, reliably with as much automation as possible to accommodate the different batches. Weber Packaging Solutions has therefore developed a system for product labeling, which automates the batch change process
Batch change? Fully automatic!
The Geset 314 ZDT can accommodate up to four labelling heads . The position, degree of inclination and distance of these labelling systems can be stored batch-specifically in the PLC of the system in advance. The systems are mounted on actuators that simplify the initial setup of the labeling: Once the optimal position is found, the setting is stored by the PLC.
When changing batches , the specific parameters can be called up at the push of a button and the system automatically adjusts to the new labeling position with the aid of the actuators. The PLC does not start the labeling process until all labeling parameters have been set correctly. This creates additional production security, maintains accuracy and consistency in automatic labelling.
The Geset 314 ZDT not only reduces setup times, but also prevents unwanted production downtime: ZDT stands for ” Zero Downtime ” and means that the label rolls can be changed during operation.
