Converting Industry
The converting industry is a versatile industry characterized by innovation and adaptability. Customers have high expectations with regard to quality, custom design, and function. Moreover, there is a growing demand for sustainable and recyclable materials, with requires new ways of adding value to products. These demands put pressure on machine and line manufacturers too, who have to optimize their products and extend their services. This can be achieved by a high degree of automation, which must be reflected by the software to ensure optimum monitoring and control. The VisiWin SCADA and HMI tool allows you to meet your requirements without any compromises.
Manufacturing Quality and Productivity
Typical converting processes are coating, laminating, and printing. Ensuring a consistent result in web processing is of particular importance. This depends on many factors, and setting the correct tension, which in turn depends on the correct speed and torque, is one of them. Minor variations may result in web raptures, errors, and rejects, leading to higher costs. Manual setting of individual parameters is particularly prone to errors. The VisiWin recipe management system facilitates parameter setting. It allows to group parameters together and save them in recipes. The user loads these recipes and sends them to the controller. Error rates and changeover times are thus significantly reduced. In addition, it allows operators to compare target and performance values and quickly adjust the parameters if needed. An early detection of errors reduces waste production and increases productivity.
More information: Recipe management
In the printing sector, digital printing has led to greater flexibility and productivity of the finishing processes. Various types of finishing processes have developed over time in the form of off-line, near-line, and in-line finishing. Each of these processes has its advantages and drawbacks. With VisiWin, you can map the respective processes in an optimal way. Off-line processes allow a high degree of variation with regard to print formats and do not depend on any issues relating to subsequent processing stages. Changeover times for off-line machines are labor-intensive and therefore time-consuming. The process demands a lot of the operators. The VisiWin recipe management and architecture assist the operator in their tasks. The VisiWin Single architecture allows to operate and monitor the machine on-site and includes a number of extended options. As a result, the machine operator can intervene purposefully and quickly. The near-line finishing combines the advantages and disadvantages of both off-line and in-line finishing. Intelligent labels are typical applications of machine-to-machine communication. They can be integrated into a VisiWin application via programming interfaces. This allows you to integrate new technologies and helps to enhance your company’s competitiveness. A full integration of different processes is referred to as in-line finishing. This type of process is best mapped by the VisiWin multi-server architecture. The operator can monitor and control the entire production process from a remote location. This reduces the time needed to make adjustments, thus increasing efficiency.
More information: VisiWin architecture
Function and Design
A high degree of automation adds complexity to the task of operating a machine. Extending the system by additional functions requires a simple design that effectively guides the operator through the process. The trend towards mass customization promotes frequent user interaction with the machine. The visualization of processes plays an important role in machine operation and monitoring. Images are universally comprehensible. VisiWin allows to integrate various image formats. They include 2d and 3d vector graphics, tracking shots towards a malfunctioning part, animations, and various lighting scenarios. All this helps the operating and service staff to perform their task. In addition, live videos can be integrated into the HMI. The operator can observe the products live and adjust the settings during the process. Machine downtimes are thus reduced and staff availability increased.
More information: Design
When creating operator interfaces, machine manufacturers often have to decide whether to program a solution themselves or create a solution by parameterization only. Programming your own solution is costly, time-consuming, and requires a lot of expertise. Pure parameterization, on the other hand, reduces flexibility. Ready-made functions often cannot correctly represent the complex processes of the highly versatile converting industry. VisiWin offers a hybrid solution. It includes parameterizable, standard functionalities and can be used in combination with a powerful programming environment that allows to design specific functions as needed. It also increases the efficiency of your team. Software experts create programmed functionalities and make them available as libraries to automation specialists, who then use these libraries to create the final operator interface.
More information: Hybrid software solutions
Services
Pay-per-use and subscription models increasingly gain importance in the industry and provide an alternative to classical selling. However, billing for these services requires a gap-free recording of the machine’s utilization. VisiWin supports this by recording values chronologically. The recording criteria can be defined as needed, and the recorded data can be organized in archives. Archives can be connected to a subscription management system. If customers use these models, they expect the machines and lines to always be up to date. Hence, maintenance and upgrade services are often provided as well. This also includes installation of the current operating system and software. If you wish to have assistance in that, our various services are at your disposal. They include modernizations, turn-key applications, project support, and component development.
More information: Services
Upgrading can be extended to include modern web technologies. The VisiWin Web UI visualizes the most relevant data using an HTML5-compatible browser. This allows to use almost any device and operating system for the HMI. Mobile devices can thus be used along with a local operator panel. Different user groups can benefit from that. Managers can keep an eye on the most important figures, using them for decision-making, while service staff can analyze fault messages and alarms anytime, anywhere and take appropriate measures. This helps to save a substantial amount of time.
More information: Web UI
VisiWin has many more features for your HMI/SCADA solution: Functionalities
VisiWin is used by many players in the converting industry and grows constantly in close cooperation with our customers.
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