Optical Control Systems (OCS), based in Witten, Germany, and the Mondi Group have concluded a co-operation agreement, with work on further developments ongoing in a continuous exchange at the management level.
OCS
OCS and Mondi: Clever use of defects – integrated quality and production monitoring
Mondi is a leading packaging and paper group and the plant in Gronau, Germany, specialising in hygiene components, advanced technical films, label films, and decorative and flooring films. Mondi Gronau sees itself as a pioneer in the field of integrated process analysis and integration in film extrusion.
From the technology for quality and production control to the self-controlling machine, Mondi implements this with the help of OCS components. The basis is provided by the sophisticated inspection technology using the OCS Web Inspection System FSP600, which detects and marks defects and immediately alarms the operator. However, a simple and user-friendly teach-in software is also essential. Defects are detected and classified accordingly.
Olaf Brauckmann, Head of Technical Service at Mondi Gronau, said: "OCS Inspection Systems provide the basis for our process control. By means of the extended networking of complete data stocks from the OCS analysis software and our PDA system, we can react faster to quality variations and assist in the reduction of scrap, rework and machine downtimes.”
Almost all extrusion and converting lines are equipped with OCS inspection systems which support the daily quality assessment. The machine operator is informed about process variations in good time and can counteract quality changes. All inspection systems have an interface to the company's internal production data acquisition system (PDA), so that each reel change is automatically stored with the respective roll number.
The complete traceability is given and supports the acquisition of information. Film rolls can be automatically locked by the system without operator intervention. This is made possible by additional analysis software, which relates material, raw material and process parameters from the PDA system to the respective quality/film grade and leads to long-term statistical process control.
