The industrial automation machine builder developed a unique approach to leveraging Beckhoff mechatronics technologies to merge two product streams into one
Plastic. Glass. Stainless steel. When we released XPlanar in 2019, these were the types of materials we imagined customers would want to use to cover the electromagnetic motor tiles.
But the engineers at the global packaging and processing leader Syntegon had a different idea. They put a thin conveyor belt between the base and free-floating movers. The XPlanar "flying motion" system creates a revolutionary new way to merge two product streams into one. This uniform stream then feeds into a Syntegon case packer.
"Our vision is to offer intelligent, sustainable and custom-fit solutions, which set standards in the industry," Marius Oei, Team Lead Advance Engineering, tells our colleagues in Germany. "The product handling platform is a revolution in secondary packaging, first introduced at Interpack [2023]."
The system flexibly handles many different product types. XPlanar delivers 6 degrees of freedom in motion control. Numerous functionalities, such as rotation and tilting are possible with floating and flying movers, according to Oei: "Free 2D motion did not exist in the machine before. This enables handling products on a very small area. With a software based system, format changes can be done in mere seconds. Simply upload a new trajectory to the movers, and a new product can be moved."
Beckhoff Vision also supplies critical software and hardware for fully integrated machine vision capabilities. "With integrated optical quality control and buffering, the effective products can be rejected and reworked," Oei says.
The adaptive system accommodates a wide range of products and package types, while new features can be added via simple software updates. All machine automation is handled via standard PC Control from Beckhoff, including all machine control for XPlanar, plant-level and higher-level networking and high-performance and servo-based motion control.
"We don't see individual components but one single system from Beckhoff," Oei concludes. "The advantages are centralized programming, precise synchronization of the components as well as easy integration and runtime-adjustable parameters of the components due to machine-wide, uniform communication with EtherCAT. Another benefit is having one single supplier with whom we work together very well."
Ready to revolutionize your packaging applications with adaptive automation technologies? Contact your local Beckhoff sales engineer today.
Mark Ruberg is the Packaging Industry Manager for Beckhoff Automation LLC.