Germany: Beckhoff Automation Makes Movements in Manufacturing Environments Easier

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter  09/17/2013

Germany-based Beckhoff Automation employs 2,750 employees in 62 countries. But even with thousands of worldwide team members, the company is dwarfed by automation giants like Rockwell or Siemens. Beckhoff's leadership knows great things can come in small packages. "Because we are privately held, we are able to put 30 percent back into R&D," says Christian Schulze, international senior business development manager for the food, beverage and tobacco industries. "None of our competitors can do that because they have responsibilities to their shareholders. They may only put 1 or 3 percent back into R&D."

Beckhoff Automation recently used these resources to develop a transportation system framework that is revolu-tionary in the automation industry. According to Schulze, the idea behind Beckhoff Automation's linear extended trans-portation system (XTS) is nothing new—"it gets products from point A to point B." But its application is making these complex movements easier, more flexible and less expensive for a multitude of industries—including tobacco.

Rising to the challenge

Beckhoff Automation's ability to divert significant funds into research and development paid off in 2011 when Bosch Packaging came to the company with a challenge. "Bosch, the famous packaging machine company, needed a special-ized machine that would put gum into its foil package after production," Schulze explains. "They needed an efficient way to place every piece of chewing gum an exact distance behind the next so they're all spaced appropriately in the package." According to Schulze, Bosch had tried to build its ideal machine for years but was held back because of size, resource and cost restraints.

To be effective, Bosch's machine needed to be afford-able and a convenient size. "They asked us to help them because we have electronic knowledge that complements their mechanic expertise," Schulze says.

Beckhoff Automation's XTS technology provided the solu-tion Bosch sought. "This system catches the gum from the production machine to the packaging machine, places it exactly where it needs to go in the package, then gets the next piece and places that, and then the next, and so on." Schulze says the machine is 50 percent smaller than what Bosch was using before, so they save a significant amount of production space.

From A to B

Mechanical engineers have studied the basic technology behind the XTS technology since the '60s, Schulze says. "For example, the German high-speed train is run on the same principle." But until now, the technology has had sig-nificant drawbacks, he adds: "The train is huge and requires a lot of energy."

Beckhoff Automation's XTS is smaller and much more energy efficient. "Our clients want their machine to be as small as possible and to use the least amount of energy pos-sible. For our XTS system, the size can be anywhere from 1 to 10 meters long and 40 centimeters high. Or, you can
reconfigure it depending on your space needs so that it is only 5 centimeters high," Schultze says.

Operators can also vary the speed on the XTS. "Normally, a transportation system would have only one speed that can-not change, but with the XTS, it can be however fast or slow you'd like, depending on your product," says Schulze. "It's usually dangerous to go fast and then quickly drop the speed."

According to Schulze, with other transportation systems, changing the speed between products is nearly impossible because the operator has to rebuild the machine by manually switching out its mechanical parts. "This system is very pro-grammable; you can just change the software with the push of a button to vary the speed or the position. There are many possibilities for what you can transport and what you can do," Schulze says. 

Tobacco packaging

Today's packaging requirements are often an inconve-nience for cigarette manufacturers, Schulze says. "They have to print specific language on every small cigarette pack. Then they have to read the printing to make sure it's legible. Then they have to package those individual packs in a box. Then they have to put the box in the carton and then the carton [on] the pallet." After all that, Schulze says, each individual pack must be followed and tracked.

"The idea is, customs has to be able to read the pack with a scanner and tell where it is produced, whether it's Great Britain, China or the U.S.," he adds.

The XTS technology makes that process more efficient without taking up a lot of space. "Tobacco manufacturers can use this machine to load and arrange 500 cigarette packs per minute in the box," Schulze says. "It ensures that every pack is placed in the box at the exact position."

After every pack is loaded, the XTS system helps manu-facturers transport those boxes where they need to be in the production line.

Forward motion

In addition to Bosch Packaging, five companies are currently testing Beckhoff Automation's XTS technology, and one company has already integrated it into its official operations.

Schulze says, in part, the technology is so appealing because of its potential to evolve to fit manufacturers' unique needs. Basically, anytime something or someone moves from one place to another, there is an opportunity to improve the efficiency by incorporating XTS technology.

"We started with one size, but we have already gotten so many questions from other companies asking if the machine can be bigger or smaller," he says. "Later, you will see XTS technology used in very small and very big systems."

Beckhoff Automation's sights are set beyond just the pack-aging industry. "Imagine the moving sidewalk at the airport," Schulze says. "This could be done with our system with a faster application and a less mechanical infrastructure. This is just the start of the fantastic new technology." Enditem