Through digitalization and the linking of development and production processes, GERHARDI is focusing on increasing process reliability and know-how within its own company.
At the moment, GERHARDI is working on optimizing process data monitoring in a joint project with several companies. The aim is to transfer a large part of the monitoring function from the employee to the injection molding machine. Software in this direction already exists at Krauss Maffei with the PV control system or at Engel with IQ-weight-control or the Observer. However, testing shows that these systems do not yet fully meet our part quality requirements.
The use of new software and further developments should result in fewer or, at best, no defective components being fed into the subsequent painting or electroplating processes.
Similar developments are underway for electroplating. In order to make this complex process more transparent as well, the process data of the plant are to be combined with the results of the chemical laboratory analysis and the resulting bath additions and with the hydra application data from injection molding and control. The subsequent analysis is to determine the most important causative influencing variables for component defects. The implementation will take place in several steps. As a first milestone, we will soon receive a protocol for product carrier evaluation from AMT for the electroplating shop in Ibbenbüren. This will enable us to assign specific defect patterns to the product carriers or bath stations.
In our Rosmart plant, we have commissioned the company Symate, based in Dresden, to consolidate the process data. As part of a pilot project, the data from the KM S120 and S121 injection molding machines will be linked with the electroplating data, the analysis table and with the hydraulic data. As soon as the plausibility of the data is established, the visualization is app-based through the detact company software.
In addition to functions for order management and key figure display, the software also offers monitoring of process parameters and the possibility of carrying out correlation analyses, the results of which are used to determine further factors influencing the quality of our products.
The two injection molding machines are now integrated into the company network. The process data recorded during each injection cycle is transferred to the detactsoftware for further processing. At the moment, the electroplating and Hydra databases are being connected, after which the data must be assigned by the IT specialists and process engineers. After that, the evaluation of the data takes place. We are convinced that we will then be able to make our production processes even more robust thanks to the transparency gained and with the new findings.
