When the magazine of pre-cut cartons is empty, the packing process is interrupted. The same applies when adhesive runs out, or when there is no film available to wrap products or secure loads.
Sick's digital fill level monitoring service (Filling Level Monitoring) provides an answer to this problem. The solution detects, indicates and visualizes the fill level of packaging materials and other resources required by packaging machines. It aggregates the data and makes it accessible anytime, anywhere via a service cloud. The Filling Level Monitoring ensures a replenishment-free packaging process, and optimizes production processes on all packaging systems and lines.
This new solution enables the fill level of carton packs, liquids or granulates to be monitored not only in a stand-alone machine, but also in a linked packaging line or an entire fleet of machines. Sensors in the machines detect the fill level of the magazines present and report it to the digital service. This, in turn, aggregates the data and displays it in a simple, clear format on a dashboard.
Data can be consulted locally or remotely, via any device with a web browser. When critical fill levels are reached, they can be signaled to the machine operator via configurable alarm signals or vibrations on a smartwatch. This automatic notification service facilitates material replenishment and reduces the risk of packaging machine downtime.
A cloud service
The Filling Level monitoring not only ensures that sufficient stocks of carton packs, liquids or granulates are available at all times, but also enables production processes on all packaging systems and lines to be optimized via the cloud.
To this end, sensor data is aggregated and processed into machine manufacturer-independent information, making it easy to display and analyze the load on production lines (or even sites), and identify unused machine capacity, for example.
The operator thus optimizes the load on his packaging machines and avoids capacity peaks. Customized services and analyses can also be added to adapt the digital service to specific packaging machines and processes.
Digital services transform sensor data into value-added information. Digital services such as fill level monitoring show just how useful traditional sensor data can be for the operation of digitized machines and plants. By combining intelligent sensors with intelligent services, it is possible to record events globally, display processes transparently and thus improve productivity.