Page 28 - Plastics News April 2018

FeAtures

Smart Manufacturing in Plastic Injection Molding

Denny Scher

Since plastics is the third largest sector in the manufacturing industry, it warrants special consideration in the
IIoT

achines can now communicate failure points and predictive and preventative maintenance, which in the
Mcollect data that can be used to improve predictive long run improves uptime. Data analysis is used to predict
and preventative maintenance, which in the long run and prevent failure; it indicates when intervention is
improves uptime. Smart Manufacturing is talked about required and recommends the necessary corrective
quite a bit. It goes by other names, too, like the Internet actions. Troubleshooting is more efficient, which benefits
both manufacturers and customers.
Sensors, Connectivity and Data

The entire concept of smart manufacturing in injection
molding revolves around collecting and analyzing the
data. Sensors collect the data and networks transport
the data. If a device or piece of equipment on the floor
is standalone, it will not contribute to the collective
knowledge of the smart factory. Devices and machinery
equipped with sensors have the ability to monitor,
collect, exchange and analyze data – all without human
interaction. The sensors collect data, and communicate
better information on the plant floor, as well as outside
of Things (IoT), Industrial IoT (IIoT), and Industry 4.0.
The term IoT was first coined by Peter T. Lewis in 1985 the plant (or from the outside in) faster, in order to make
easier decisions.
to describe “the integration of people, processes, and
technology with connectable devices and sensors to enable Every device that has the ability to gather intelligence
remote monitoring, status, manipulation, and evaluation needs to be on a backbone of some type that allows
of trends of such devices.” it to produce data or have data pulled out of it. New
sensor networks can be established, or sensors and data
So the term has been around for a while now, but the
networking can be added to existing devices. The goal
concept still continues to develop and evolve as technology
in injection molding is to connect the equipment on the
continues to advance through new hardware like sensors,
plant floor to a network that can monitor, measure, store,
and through the collection and analysis of data. So, how
and retrieve data.
have the advancements in smart manufacturing affected
the plastic injection molding business? This article takes As for the data itself, decisions need to be made that
a look at the topic. make the most sense for the injection molder. How and

Benefits of Smart Manufacturing where to house the data is one such decision – should
it be kept in-house, or outside of the company walls?
Smart factories use smart manufacturing to gain Data security is of paramount concern, so if data is
production efficiencies, improve production quality and stored off premises, remote connectivity and how to
reduce time to market. Machines can now communicate safely get into your system from the outside needs to
failure points and collect data that can be used to improve be addressed.

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