The hot melt systems from Baumer hhs are prime examples of the complete integration of this identification technology.

Intelligent connection

The demands on a hot melt system can vary in day-to-day production, depending on the job structure and type. The melter is frequently connected to a variable number of adhesive application systems. These systems each encompass at least one heated delivery hose and one heated application head.

The configuration and composition of a hot melt system are subject to constant change throughout its entire life cycle due to changing production parameters. Components are often omitted, or others are added, depending on the different products and changes in the gluing parameters. Or the failure of a component leads to investment in a replacement.

The importance of the ID for the sustainable assurance of production quality can be deduced from the individual characteristics of each of these components. The heating time of the hot melt application system and the deviation of the operating temperature from the setpoint value of the individual components directly influence productivity and operational reliability. The necessary optimisation of the control behaviour of the entire system requires the time that elapses between the arrival of the control signal and its implementation to be known for each component. In addition, the speed with which the individual components implement the requested corrections varies due to their differing gains.

Technical parameters, such as heating power and permissible maximum temperatures, complete the picture of the individual components.

In order to achieve sustainable production, it is not possible to optimise the behaviour of the hot melt application system as a whole without a knowledge of the individual parameters. In addition to the insulation of all components throughout, the optimum design of the control loops in particular contributes to short overall heating times and lower power consumption.

This shows that great attention needs to be paid to the design of the control system in order to achieve optimum production and conservation of resources. The Baumer hhs hot melt system therefore recognises the installed components by their unique ID, adjusts control parameters on the basis of the assigned parameters and reliably prevents impermissible operating modes. No other hot melt equipment supplier offers this error-avoiding ‘plug and play’ approach.

Conversely, many systems require the manual input of these parameters. However, this is complex and prone to error when the configuration of the hot melt system is frequently changed. The incorrect or incomplete input of a parameter set diminishes the performance of the overall system. In the worst case, the lifetime of the components is limited by incorrect activation. Well-known hot melt systems therefore frequently use fixed average control parameters; however, these always represent a less-than-optimum compromise.

The parameters often change when defective components are replaced – for example, if a defective application head heater is replaced by a heater with a different characteristic. Normal systems do not recognise the change.

In addition to this, all components have a limited life span. In a direct comparison with the competition, the low spare parts sales as a percentage of Baumer hhs’s total turnover proves that Baumer hhs components generally have an above-average life expectancy. However, the failure of a component frequently leads to the breakdown of the complete hot melt system, accompanied by unfortunate losses of production or incorrect gluing.

Preventive maintenance is therefore called for and has the task in modern production environments of guaranteeing the technical availability of the production plant and avoiding critical interruptions in production. This involves the preventive repair or preventive replacement of components on the basis of the expected trouble-free operating period, which is determined by means of statistical analysis or on the basis of practical experience. An important prerequisite for the efficient implementation of a preventive maintenance strategy is that the life span of the individual components is known. The service lives of the components can differ from one another significantly, meaning that the mere recording of the operating hours of the overall system does not allow an optimum maintenance strategy to be devised. ID technology, on the other hand, makes it possible to monitor the life span of each component individually. This permits a cost-optimised, targeted maintenance strategy.

The components themselves can store the data required for the automatic adjustment of the control parameters by the multi-zone temperature regulation system. The replacement of a component leads to adjustment of the control parameters that is controlled by the component itself; the entire system is therefore always operated in an optimum operating mode. Temperature sensors can be monitored for short-circuits and breakages, and they can be automatically calibrated. ‘Plug and play’ in its purest form, which is usually only familiar from consumer systems.

The operating hours of each component and every transgression of limit parameters are stored on the components themselves. These data are communicated to the controller following a repair or the replacement of a component. The user obtains useful information about the operating condition.

So, a small chip forms the basis for a self-optimising, reliable adhesive systems.