OMRON & MPE: Smart tray sealing solutions for greener, more efficient processes
21/11/2024 OMRON Industrial Automation
With technological advances in the food production sector coming thick and fast, it can be difficult to know when to make the leap into smart manufacturing. Luckily, systems with the ability to meet all of today’s challenges as well as adapt to tomorrow’s now exist.
MPE’s i3 Tray Sealer, for example, leverages the power of OMRON’s SYSMAC Platform to enable faster, greener, more efficient processes now, and to create, test, and deploy additional functionality in the future.
Read on to find out more how next-generation, future-proof tray sealing could save your business time, money, and resources for years to come.
Perfect harmony of software and hardware
The i3 Tray Sealer is an all-electric, high-throughput, small footprint solution for meat product, fresh produce, and ready meal production lines. It is powered by the SYSMAC Studio, the first integrated development environment (IDE) to bring logic, motion, robotics, human machine interface (HMI), vision, sensing, safety and 3D simulation together in one single platform.
Using this approach, MPE has developed a range of time-, energy- and resource-saving features all designed to help customers stay ahead in this highly competitive industry.
Greener to run
John Hodgkiss, MPE UK Ltd’s Technical Director on the i3, said: “One of the key features is that the machine is all electric. There are no pneumatics, which provides energy savings and a quicker payback on investment.”
Calculations in the United States, for example, found the machine cost just $8.50 a day to run. While the exact figures will vary accordingly to local energy costs, Hodgkiss said it usually added up to a saving of at least 50%.
In addition, the energy-efficient nature of the machine means that producers may be eligible to green Government grants, such as those offered in the UK.
A total of £500m of funding, for example, is available through the UK’s Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF), which has been designed to help businesses with high energy use invest in solutions that cut their energy bills and emissions. Various capital allowance and tax incentive programmes also encourage businesses to invest in green machinery.
Easier to install
The absence of compressed air combined with the use of OMRON’s programmable logic controllers (PLCs), also makes the i3 easier and quicker to install than traditional tray sealers, contributing to a more rapid return on investment.
“Because we are using the OMRON PLC, you do not need any additional motion controls. Everything is done within the EtherCAT, which uses just one controller and a cable to the servo drive,” said Hodgkiss.
This, he added, reduced the number of components required, and simplified the whole installation process. “From an electrical point of view, you could wire the machine in in a week, from start to finish. Similar set ups would usually take twice as long as that,” he said.
Enhanced efficiency
The i3 can seal up to 20 cycles a minute with up to eight trays per cycle, equating to a throughput of around 160 per minute. But the efficiency savings do not stop there
The MPE team have leveraged SYSMAC technology to provide advanced, built-in predictive maintenance. The machine’s control system uses sensors and algorithms to track factors such as motor vibrations, which can be an indication of loose components, and motor temperature, which can signify over-tensioned belts. This allows the factory team to identify and rectify potential issues before they have a chance to impact on productivity with unplanned downtime.
It also has a ‘no snap film’ feature. Using the torque control function block on SYSMAC Studio, the machine continually adjusts the tension of the film to the size of the reel and the product. This reduces the strain placed on the film, lowering the chances of breakages – and the resulting, expensive downtime.
Combined with the reduction in running costs, such features provide an extremely competitive seal per item cost, and all within a smaller footprint and with the deepest available tray sealing capacity of 200mm.
Added flexibility
By powering the i3 with SYSMAC, MPE have been able to programme in the flexibility modern manufacturers need to meet client demands and switch between batches.
“We have made the tooling specific to the size of the tray,” said Hodgkiss. “The operator just presses one button on the screen, and everything is released. They just lift it out and put in the new tooling.” It means that operators can go from sealing joints to sausages, for example, in just minutes.
Crucially, it’s a flexibility that extends to meeting future needs, as customer challenges evolve. Hodgkiss said: “We have made the machine as mechanically simple as we can, with as few components as possible, and really focused on the software. That way, we can easily add capability and improvements by updating the software, rather than having to rewire anything.”
In essence, he said, it’s about future-proofing the solution, and ensuring customers have greener, faster, more efficient tray sealing solutions for years to come.
Print this articleFor more information, please contact:
OMRON Industrial Automation
Opal Drive
Fox Milne
Milton Keynes
Bucks
MK15 0DG
Tel: 01908 258124
Email: uk@omron.com
Web: https://industrial.omron.co.uk/en/home
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