Become better

Optimize machinery
 

There are two main ways to optimize machinery – manufacturers can either invest in new, better equipment, or perform targeted upgrades of their existing machines to achieve a higher level of performance. As a technology leader, the Hauni Group invests continuously in research and development. The result is a large number of new machines and systems for GLT, Primary, Secondary and logistics every year. “With each new development, we aim to significantly outperform existing solutions in key areas, such as flexibility, performance, quality or efficiency, and solve problems in our customers’ production processes,” explains Jana Siouzou, Head of Marketing at Hauni. “Given the high quality of our machinery and plant portfolio, this is no easy task. Products such as the belt sorter PURE, the world's most efficient optical sorter, or the PROTOS-M5e and -M4e makers, which represent a quantum leap forward in flexibility, efficiency, mean time between failures (MTBF) and automation compared to other solutions on the market, show that the effort really pays off.”

However, new machines are not the only practical solution that the Hauni Group offers to support customers. “For our customers, it is absolutely vital to get the most out of their existing machines,” explains Nowak. “We supply a wide range of solutions for optimizing product life cycle management. These include obsolescence concepts as well as optimized maintenance solutions or the Technical Improvement Program (TIP), which offers a total of more than 300 individual solutions for modernizing older machines to the latest standards and boosting their performance.”

Obsolescence, which is often a rather neglected issue, can have serious financial implications. If electronic spare parts for a machine are outdated and not replaced in time, for example, it may no longer be possible to find a 1:1 replacement. The resulting costs for conversion and downtime can quickly spiral to €100,000.

“Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem – the free obsolescence analysis feature in the spare parts management module of Hauni’s customer portal, myPORTAL,” says Nowak. “Here, customers can analyse their machine to identify obsolete electrical and electronic spare parts and procure the successor products in good time. If an obsolete part is detected, the analysis tool shows the other machines in which it is still installed.”

Maintenance also plays an important role in preserving the value of machinery and equipment. Integrating maintenance work into everyday production schedules is a major challenge for companies as they attempt to balance the conflicting needs of high capacity utilization, frequent product changes and demanding quality, efficiency and cost targets. Hauni One Shift Maintenance ensures a perfect balance between maintenance and production schedules and thus significantly improves production. “The data from our tests clearly prove this,” says Nowak. “A PROTOS-M5, with over 10,000 operating hours measured with One Shift Maintenance, experienced a 57 percent reduction in planned downtime from 372 to 160 hours.”

This result was due to the fact that One Shift Maintenance requires no more than eight hours of planned downtime and is performed after 500 hours of production time. “We achieve this by performing major parts of the maintenance offline while the system is back in production. Plug-and-play subassemblies that are used in a variety of machines considerably reduce complexity and downtime: worn parts from the exchanged subassembly are replaced in the customer’s workshop or at Hauni. The module can then be installed during the next service,” explains Nowak. In addition, we usually carry out preventive conditionbased maintenance and schedule it during maintenance intervals that do not exceed the planned eight hours.”

Processes in focus
 

The methods applied provide another important lever for improving production performance – working out how production or procurement processes work and dovetail. Some typical challenges arise on a regular basis – including line efficiency, spare parts planning, or the optimization of brand changes in an enormous range of customer production environments around the world. Hauni has developed numerous approaches and specific solutions for process optimization along the entire production chain.

“One problem that we and our customers repeatedly encounter is that operating personnel adjust many of the individual machine settings – frequently based on gut feeling and experience. The results achieved often fall well short of the optimum.” The extent of this subpar performance is best illustrated by a customer project. “One customer was attempting to improve the performance of machines in its make/pack lines to reduce loose end. After first recording all the machine data, we were able to produce a performance analysis that identified the best line and established it as a reference.”

Efficient monitoring allows operators to make meaningful comparisons of overall performance as well as target and actual values for individual parameters. It enables them to measure the success of individual adjustments. “By comparing various parameters, we filtered out the differences, calculated their influence on the target variables and modified the data sets accordingly,” reports Castro. “The final OEE comparison highlights the success of the project: while loose end in the line decreased by 36 percent, average production per shift increased by eleven percent – as a positive side effect.” Taking this approach lays the foundations for lasting improvements. By defining specific machine settings and targeting the use of established process settings, a process known as “centerlining”, customers can not only utilize individual machines or lines more effectively – the knowledge gained from one production process can be used to benefit all of a company's locations.

Spare parts management is another process with enormous optimization potential. Hauni's fully automated VMI+ spare parts management system significantly improves delivery processes and saves space in the warehouse. Philip Morris plants in Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland have been using the data-based management system for their wearing parts for several years. Its inventories of around 1,000 wearing parts for Hauni machines are recorded at the plants, transmitted to Hauni in Hamburg and evaluated there. Hauni automatically refills the warehouse whenever Philip Morris removes parts to perform repairs.

Ronald Fiedler, Spare Parts Analyst at Philip Morris, was impressed by the pilot project at the company’s Berlin plant. “The implementation of VMI+ has been a complete success. We were able to reduce our spare parts inventories significantly while maintaining the same level of availability. That frees up about a quarter of our warehouse capacity.” According to Fiedler, the smart solution also improves daily workflows: “We want our machines to run flawlessly. If spare parts are missing and we have production downtime, this results in ad hoc costs and efficiency suffers.”