The inspection diary of Lao Wang in our workshop can finally retire! In the past, he used to measure the cups one by one with a vernier caliper every day, but now it is all handed over to this IoT monitoring system. Last week, a customer in Guangdong took a video-their puffed food packaging line ran continuously for 72 hours, and the cup wear data was clearly visible on the mobile phone. Lao Wang looked at it and slapped his thigh: "This is more accurate than the feel of our master!"
Equip the cup with an "ECG"
Everyone who has worked on a packaging machine knows that the wear of the cup of 0.1 mm cannot be seen by the naked eye, but this little error can make the sealing pass rate drop a lot. Our monitoring system has attached an "electronic ID card" to each container. The built-in vibration sensor is like taking the pulse of the machine. Thousands of material-picking actions per hour are converted into waveforms. During the debugging last month, the container at station 2 looked bright and new, but the system alarmed that stress cracks appeared on the side wall. It was only after removing it and using a magnifying glass that a hair-thin crack was found.
The warning comes three beats earlier than the failure
What makes customers give a thumbs up is our prediction algorithm. The system can not only display the monitoring data of the packaging machine container in real time, but also compare historical cases through the cloud. There is a manufacturer of instant coffee in the north. Their metal containers have to withstand high-temperature steam erosion every day. In the past, they had to be replaced every two months on average. Now the system reminds "it's time to do anti-corrosion treatment" ten days in advance. A simple coating maintenance has extended the service life by 50%.
The mobile phone becomes a mobile monitoring room
Last week, I went to a customer in Zhejiang for training. It happened that their night shift supervisor Xiao Liu demonstrated a new skill - eating supper while browsing the phone, and suddenly a yellow warning popped up. It turned out that the No. 7 packaging machine detected abnormal vibration. He strolled to the workshop and restarted the feeding vibration plate, and the hidden danger was eliminated in seconds. If it were in the past, it would have to wait until the next morning shift found the jam before it could be handled. Now the night shift can handle it by itself, and the downtime loss alone can save more than 100,000 yuan per month.
Three unexpected practical functions
Our engineers have a lot of tricks this time:
1. Self-learning compensation mode: When encountering a slight jam caused by changes in material humidity, the system will automatically fine-tune the material picking angle, which is more delicate than the manual adjustment of the master
2. Wear hotspot map: On the control screen, you can see which position of the container wears the fastest, and guide the improvement of mold design
3. Spare parts warning function: According to the monitoring data of the packaging machine container, push spare parts procurement suggestions two weeks in advance, no longer worry about temporary out of stock
Last month, there was a customer who made pet food, and their production line had to process three sizes of freeze-dried particles at the same time. Originally, the machine had to be stopped to check the container when changing products. Now the system will automatically switch the monitoring threshold according to different materials, and the switching time is compressed from 40 minutes to 10 minutes. The workshop director, Lao Li, joked: "This level of intelligence is almost catching up with autonomous driving!"
Practical testing shows the truth
Recently, I received an interesting comparison data: a dairy factory has three identical packaging lines. Line A uses traditional manual inspections, Line B is equipped with our old version of the monitor, and Line C has this IoT system. After half a year, the cost of replacing the container cups on Line C was 38% lower than that on Line A, and the product leakage complaint rate was only one-third of that on Line B. The most surprising thing is the energy consumption data - because of the timely adjustment of the worn container cups, the power consumption of the entire line was reduced by 15%, and this green production indicator was well grasped.
24-hour online equipment doctor
We have equipped each system with a dedicated AI engineer "Xiao Rong", which can remember the historical data of the container cup monitoring of each packaging machine. A customer in Northeast China had an old equipment from 2018, which was originally planned to be eliminated. After installing our system, it was found that the container cup could still last for three production cycles, saving more than 600,000 yuan in equipment renewal fees. Now their maintenance team leader brags to everyone he meets: "We are an old tree with new flowers!"
Standing in the assembly workshop and looking at these equipment that are about to be shipped, I suddenly remembered the days when I followed my master to repair packaging machines 20 years ago. At that time, I never dared to think that one day our Chinese-made packaging machines would also be able to use monitoring technology that is more precise than a hair. At the next industry exhibition, I must let those foreign counterparts see what real intelligent manufacturing is!
