Packaging line of a packaging installation and method for operating such a packaging line
AssigneeIllinois Tool Works Inc.
InventorsHermann Schohaus, Theo Schulte, Linus Wöhle
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for operating a packaging line of a packaging installation, wherein the packaging line includes at least one packaging machine having an infeed conveyor belt, wherein the packaging line further includes at least one transport belt which is disposed upstream of the infeed conveyor belt, wherein the method includes the steps of: i) defining and/or determining a current machine performance of the at least one packaging machine; ii) determining an output request for the at least one transport belt; and iii) defining and setting a transport speed of the at least one transport belt, wherein the transport speed is defined as a function of the determined output request.
Claims8
A method for operating a packaging line of a packaging installation, wherein the packaging line comprises at least one packaging machine having an infeed conveyor belt, wherein the packaging line further comprises at least one transport belt which, viewed in a transport direction of the packaging line, is disposed upstream of the infeed conveyor belt of the at least one packaging machine and in series with the infeed conveyor belt of the at least one packaging machine, wherein the method comprises the following method steps:
- i) determining a current machine performance of the at least one packaging machine, wherein the current machine performance defines the number of products to be processed by the at least one packaging machine per unit of time;
- ii) determining an output request for the at least one transport belt, wherein the output request defines a number of products to be delivered to the infeed conveyor belt of the at least one packaging machine by the at least one transport belt per unit of time;
- iii) determining a current fill level of the infeed conveyor belt using two light barriers or using a light barrier at a beginning of the infeed conveyor belt, a transport belt speed, and a transport belt length;
- iv) setting a transport speed of the at least one transport belt, wherein the transport speed is defined as a function of the determined output request, wherein the packaging line includes a decentralized belt control system based on a pull system which communicates via a bus system the performance requirements against the transport direction of the packaging line from the infeed conveyor belt to the at least one transport belt and from the at least one transport belt to an outfeed conveyor belt of an upstream packaging machine, wherein the belt control system is configured to deliver an output request Rne from the infeed conveyor belt of a downstream packaging machine to the transport belt immediately upstream of the infeed conveyor belt, wherein the output request defines a number of products to be supplied per unit of time to the infeed conveyor belt of the downstream packaging machine by the immediately upstream conveyor belt, wherein the transport speed of the conveyor belt is calculated according to the formula:
- V
- =
- R
- n
-
- e
- ·
- l
- F
-
- l
- next
- with:
- V=transport speed
- Rne=output request from the infeed conveyor belt of the at least one packaging machine
- Flnext=fill level of the infeed conveyor belt of the at least one packaging machine with 0≤Flnext≤1
- l=product length,
- wherein, if the downstream belt requests 0 products per minute and the current fill level of the downstream belt does not correspond to a previously defined target fill level so the target fill level of the downstream belt has not been reached, a request is submitted to the upstream transport belt until the current fill level of the downstream belt corresponds to the target fill level, wherein the upstream belt then stops.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.