SIKO Italia and Horner OCS partners to offer a Complete Quick Size Changeover Industry 4.0 ready solution

Thanks to SIKO close partnership with a circle of customers from internationally leading machine manufacturers, that allowed SIKO to set standards for decades with innovative solutions for efficient format production when changing products, and Horner OCS capability to integrate in a All-In-One solution PLC, HMI, I/O and Network , a Complete Quick Size Change Solution compliant with Industry 4.0 requirements has been developed.

One of the easiest and cheapest way to be competitive in the actual market, with a wide product variety and increasingly small batch sizes, is to increase optimum system availability for production and packing machines.

To achieve this target you’ll need a positioning solution on each axis that has to be frequently positioned, Siko has different technologies available for this, from the manual format adjustment, to the systems used in this application along with Horner OCS, Bus-compatible position indicators, for monitored format adjustment to Fieldbus compact actuators, for process optimisation, precise and fully automatic positioning.

Horner Automation Group OCS, allow for data acquisition from SIKO Bus indicators or actuators through CANOpen, to display, manage, manipulate and create recipes on a single device so that operator with a touch or a factory server can handle any setting and data to be Industry 4.0 compliant.

These two parts are what we call Complete Quick Size Changeover allowing for a dramatic reduction of setup times and make production more efficient.

Thanks to several communication options with existing systems with serial Ports, CANOpen or Ethernet with different protocols, such as ModBus TCP or Ethernet/IP, this solution is very competitive and easy to implement as it doesn’t require big  program modifications on the machine or production plant HMI/PLC system.

Automation Description:

Horner Automation Group OCS mod. XL7 is the unit used in this example to coordinate several different SIKO devices with different functionality:

Every SIKO device is connected to the OCS  All-In-One on CANOpen, to display position, send setpoints, based on the loaded recipe, manage presets and communicate with the factory server as requested by Industry 4.0 standards.

Advantages for the end user are:

1 – No more positioning errors or bad batches due to wrong system presets.

2 – Possibility to create recipes for standard operations that can be loaded by the operator or factory server.

3 – Better Size Changeover Timing control

4 – Reduced costs of Implementation as this solution can be connected to the machine main controller without having to modify the program minimising machine or system downtime.

5 – Absolute monitoring or positioning systems allow to move axis without homing for quick size changeover.