1. Hershey Foods, Hershey, PA, rebuilt a Doboy (New Richmond, WI) flow wrapper with the PackML state model incorporated via Rockwell Automation's (Milwaukee, WI) ControlLogix integrated motion and logic control. Benefits, according to Hershey's Kevin Feldenzer and Edmund Amanor, include easier troubleshooting due to inherent reporting of drive conditions. They said PackML also provided an "exceptional" template for performance metrics measurement, which permits downtime causes to be pinpointed and facilitates packaging process optimization.
2. Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, OH, is implementing the PackML state model in a special interoperability "test stand" that simulates four machines from four different manufacturers. "It actually has proven to be fairly easy to take our existing control programs and overlay the machine state model," said P&G's Dave Bauman. "We are doing that rather than rewrite the control code." The test stand uses controllers from Bosch Rexroth (Hoffman Estates, IL), Elau (Chicago, IL), and Rockwell Automation.
3. Food Machinery Sales (Bogart, GA) demonstrated its Mach 3 flow wrapper with the PackML state model implemented via Rockwell's ControlLogix integrated controller and Kinetix 6000 SERCOS servo drives. FMS controls engineer Jeff Wilkens said the machine builder was already using a state model similar to PackML and found it easy to make the switch.
4. Campbell Wrapper (De Pere, WI) was showing three of its horizontal wrapping machines incorporating the PackML state model: one via Bosch Rexroth's PPC integrated motion/logic controller, another via Baldor (Fort Smith, AR) controls, and a third using Rockwell controls.
5. Markem's (Keene, NH) SmartDate[r] 3 Plus thermal-transfer coder and an Elau PacDrive motion/logic controller, both incorporating the PackML state model, were shown networked together via PackML at the Elau booth.
6. Siemens Energy & Automation (Alpharetta, GA) and Rockwell Automation are working on incorporating PackML into some of their automation products.
"The prospect for wide industry adoption of PackML has never been better," said Markem's Fred Putnam, who chairs OMAC's PackML team, in a follow-up interview. "We're way ahead of even the most aggressive implementation timetable we've discussed."
PackTags next
Next up for the PackML team is the development of standardized "tags" or names for packaging-specific data that's exchanged on networked packaging lines. Examples include:
PackML_Current_State
PackML_State_Time
PackML_Current_Machine_Speed
PackML_Number_Products_Processed.
The data contained in these tags become the building blocks, or raw data, for machine condition monitoring, fault analysis, and so forth. The idea is to leave the computation of efficiency, equipment effectiveness, and other finished metrics to supervisory systems.
More progress on PackML PackTags is expected to be reported at the next OMAC meeting in Orlando, FL, to be held February 13-14, 2003.
