This was the kingpin in the plastics machinery producer's press conference this morning (October 14th) at Fakuma 2015 in Friedrichshafen, where Dr Hanz-Ulrich Golz President of Injection Moulding Machinery at the KraussMaffei Group said: "Plastics 4.0 is interactive service and will show us what can be possible tomorrow - this is a vision for what we are working on."
The APC function provides valuable support for the mould setter
Golz promised "interesting solutions" in this arena by the time K 2016 rolls around next year, but in the meantime, the system of integration and utilising contemporary and user-friendly innovations such as smartphone-style interfaces, text messaging and WhatsApp is already yielding some interesting results.
KraussMaffei's Plastics 4.0 vision - which is being adopted by all three brands - is developing solutions, and concentrating these under the three categories Intelligent Machines, Integrated Production and Interactive Services.
"In our view, the key requirements of plastics processors in the implementation of Industry 4.0 are production efficiency, flexibility, automation, availability and quality," said Golz.
"For us, Industry 4.0 is a long-term project. With our solutions, in the coming years we want to use the potential of intelligent and flexible production with state-of-the-art information and communication technology and support our customers in optimising their value-added chain and strengthening their market position," he added.
At Fakuma the KraussMaffei and Netstal brands present specific applications of how the Industry 4.0 vision can be implemented in injection moulding production, not least using its innovative Adaptive Process Control (APC) system which recognises and finds solutions for changes in the production system both inside and outside the machine, reducing reject rates and saving time.
Netstal and KraussMaffei take this one step further with the seamless networking of the injection moulding machines ELION 2800 and CX 300 with the materials supply/dryer from Motan- Colortronic. Using the example of select scenarios (tool change, precise planning of production start using weekly timer), visitors can discover how efficiency can be increased through data exchange or how energy consumption can be automatically reduced to a minimum.
Netstal has been offering remote support for some time, in order to be able to provide customers with fast, global and professional support.
"Using this tool, connected machines can be accessed online. This way faults can be eliminated quickly and simply by remote diagnostics", Golz stated.
The development of the future host computer interface Euromap 77, which is due to reach its completion in time for K 2016, is an important milestone in the Integrated Production area and KraussMaffei is taking a lead role in its development, which will be adopted across the European plastics processing machinery landscape when it is ready.
"For us as machinery producers," Golz said, "it is important to be at the forefront of these developments so innovative force can be transferred to our products to give added value to our customers.
Worldwide we can access the machines of our customers and with Plastics 4.0 we will be able to eliminate any defect."
