Extrusion International USA 6-2020

49 Extrusion International 6/2020 Getecha GmbH Am Gemeindegraben 13, 63741 Aschaffenburg, Germany www.getecha.de his mainly automated processes of plastics processing. When this occurs, the information and communication technology integration of the granu- lators into the production technology infrastructure plays a central role, so that their ef fi ciency and availability can also be secured on a digital level. Can you be more speci fi c about this aspect? Vogel: Imagine a plastics processor with the intention of integrating one or even several of our central or be- side-the-press granulators into hisma- terial fl ow and automated production processes using conveyor belts, tilting devices, fi lling stations and other pe- ripheral systems, in order to return residues and waste to production via a recycling circuit in a resource-saving manner. As part of such a project, various Industry 4.0 features in our granulators can provide valuable ser- vices. This is because it not only sup- ports continuous systemoptimisation, but also serves quality assurance, al- lows process-accompanying monitor- ing and can signi fi cantly improve the availability of a production line. Which Industry 4.0 functions should a granulator be equipped with in any case? Vogel: This is decided based on the concrete requirements of a project and the customer’s goals. Many things are now feasible because we use numer- So the plant operator also receives data on the implementation of im- portant process and quality improve- ments? Vogel: Correct. Not least because part of the data material processed via the signal exchange between the produc- tion line and the granulating plant is also available for Industry 4.0 func- tions, which enable a so-called Predic- tiveMonitoring and increase the plant availability. For example, much of the collected information can be pre- pared for predictive maintenance and then retrieved by the Getecha remote maintenance tool. For this purpose, the granulators can be linked and in- tegrated into the customer’s MRO in- frastructure. The knowledge gained from this also fl ows into the trouble- shooting catalogue of the integrated “manual” of the Getecha granulators. The master control system of the pro- duction machine can then display this information to the operator. What speci fi c industry 4.0 projects is Getecha currently working on? Vogel: Well, these are ongoing proj- ects with customers, and I cannot re- veal too much about them. But I can tell you that whether it is about the waste fromthe extrusionof thickpoly- propylene sheets, faulty parts from the thermoforming of coffee capsules or edge trims from fi lm production - in many places Getecha granulators with Industry 4.0 functions are now an established part of production lines. Digitalisation - in addition to the selection of the appropriate ro- tors, drives, hoppers and many other components - is now a major factor in the customer-oriented design of our granulators. And we fi rmly expect that this topic will continue to gain in importance in the future. Mr. Vogel, thank you for this inter- view. ous possibilities of modern sensor and interface technology as well as a range of established fi eld bus systems. In this way many important process and ma- chinedatacanbetapped,documented, processed, visualised and evaluated. Do you have an illustrative example of this? Vogel: If the signal exchange between granulator and production line is con- fi gured, all statuses, actions and error events can be recorded and assigned. Based on this, critical situations can be reported with de fi ned warning levels to the higher-level production control system, which then initiates suitable counter and corrective measures at an early stage. In addition, it is pos- sible to record all production-relevant performance parameters and mate- rial key fi gures of a granulator - such as throughput or the quality of the ground material - and to send them to the Operating Data Acquisition or Major Diagnostic Category systems of the plastics processor for further evaluation. This also applies to the runtimes, energy consumption, per- formance peaks and many other pa- rameters from the operation of the granulators. We can also arrange for all system messages to be com- municated to the host computer and archived there for analysis and docu- mentation. All this creates maximum transparency about the performance of an automated system. Getecha’s energy consumption tool enables ef fi ciency monitoring and performance optimisation of grinding plants (All images: Getecha)