Saving energy and reducing carbon emissions are now key when choosing equipment - and vacuum-based material handling systems should be no exception, argues Haela El Sheemy, PIAB's pharma business unit manager
The manufacturing sector is faced with an important challenge: reducing energy consumption and minimising the carbon footprint left by the production facility.
Each day, smart decisions are being made in terms of what companies can do to make the world a cleaner place. A multitude of government incentives are up for grabs for those manufacturers who go above and beyond in their green efforts. Forward-thinking companies see clearly the chance to build a strong reputation, putting into practice the environmentally friendly ideals that they stand by.
This is why, when it comes to designing a material handling system, saving energy is top of the list for most manufacturers. By never using more energy than absolutely necessary, companies can reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Many of these manufacturers are proving that savings are now achievable at all points in the material handling process when using a decentralised vacuum solution.
economic energy use
One of the ways many material handling OEMs can improve manufacturing productivity is through the optimisation of vacuum system design. Vacuum pressure, created by any pressure lower than atmospheric pressure, is the method of choice for keeping the majority of industrial products moving.
The more distance there is between the vacuum source and the point-of-use, the more energy is consumed. With a traditional centralised vacuum system, one vacuum source usually provides vacuum to multiple points-of-use at varying distances. Conversely, a decentralised system locates vacuum pumps closer to the points-of-use. By switching from a centralised to a de-centralised system, energy consumption is greatly lowered.
Designing the ultimate decentralised vacuum system is possible by positioning vacuum power exactly where it is needed. COAX is an improved design based on the multi-stage concept for creating vacuum with compressed air. It can be easily integrated into the body of manufacturing machinery with multi-stage cartridges, making maximum use of energy by eliminating line losses and inefficiencies.
conveying at speed
Located at the beginning of most material handling processes is the conveying system. Dry ingredients, such as powders, must be transported quickly and efficiently to prevent downtime. The challenge here is to look for a solution that is capable of transporting a large volume of material at a fast pace without consuming too much energy.
Recently, a Swedish manufacturer of tubes for the pharmaceutical, food and personal care industries installed an industrial vacuum conveyor based on COAX technology to transport plastic granules. The conveyor achieves higher performance and consumes 25% less energy than the previous conventional pump. Since the new system was installed, the company's energy costs have been greatly decreased.
As products move through the production line at high-speed, accurate handling is a must. Smaller items, such as blisterpacks, require a reliable grip. Finding a flexible solution for fast changeover with all of these advantages that can also reduce energy consumption is possible.
Because the energy-efficient COAX cartridges are smaller than the size of a pencil, and made of extremely lightweight materials, they are ideal for the rapidly moving robotic systems used for applications like pick-and-place.
By eliminating all tubing between vacuum and point-of-use, the cartridges improve initial flow significantly, enabling a quicker and more secure grip for suction cups and faster performance for machinery.
Difficult-to-handle products such as plastic bags and porous, uneven surfaces like cardboard can also benefit greatly from an energy-reducing decentralised
vacuum system.
Filneapack, a producer of original solutions for end-users in the food industry located in Barcelona, Spain, integrated COAX cartridges into its bag handling machinery, providing a multistage vacuum ejector directly at the point of use. The decentralised solution provided a strong grip on the moving, flexible packages and significantly reduced the amount of production line downtime.
"The cartridges allowed us to improve how quickly and reliably the machine could adapt to a change of product on the line," said Xavier Plana, the company's engineering manager. "We were impressed with how economical our machines could be when utilising the new technology."cup selection
Choosing the best suction cup for a material handling application can result in a more secure grip with less air leakage.
For example, the unique dual-hardness of Duraflex suction cups make them ideally suited for applications where micro-leakage can occur, such as corrugated cardboard handling when erecting boxes.
Not only is Duraflex a strong, durable and elastic material; the sealing lip is a very soft and thin material, while the multiple bellows are a more rigid durometer.
These characteristics of the suction cup provide enough strength and stability for high initial flow applications. With the strength, softness and flexibility needed to seal uneven or coarse surfaces, less air is wasted.
The appropriate suction cup can also reduce the use of energy more directly. In some applications, using a larger suction cup maximises lifting force and allows the user to work at lower
vacuum pressures.
When Joulin Aero, a leading French-based manufacturer of automatic vacuum gripping technology, wanted to offer customers a versatile vacuum gripping system that could save on time and cost it decided to integrate multistage vacuum cartridges into its grippers.
Using this solution, the company developed a new gripping system for palletising applications called the ICV, which reliably handles a multitude of products in varying sizes, forms and packaging material.
"Aside from requiring modularity, another crucial factor in development was to supply as much airflow with as little energy consumption as possible. This made integration with COAX an obvious solution, as we see up to 30% savings in energy with our smaller grippers," said Francois Joulin, president of Joulin Aero.
With the more efficient gripper system, Joulin's end-users can choose the smaller robots, thus saving even more energy in palletising applications.
emission reduction
Energy savings translate directly into reduced carbon dioxide emissions for manufacturers. With an equation recently developed by PIAB, companies can see exactly what difference they can make in the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted. Tonnes of carbon can be saved by optimising a vacuum system at each step of the manufacturing process.