What does “established in the community” mean?

To be established in the community, the person or company must be carrying out a lawful economic activity on a stable and continuous basis in a Member State of the EEA.

Making Halloween Lean

Halloween Lean?

Incase you haven’t heard, Lean is in. So we at Pilz wondered if there was a way to apply lean to Halloween. Here’s what Vito Curcuru, our Marketing Manager came up with.

It has been a while since I trick or treated and a lot has changed, but it’s not too late for you to teach lean to a kid! Since these tips involve maximizing candy consumption, it’s probably best to teach this lesson to your nieces and nephews or friend’s kids.

Value Stream Map that route! Look back at last year’s path.  Were some houses better than others? Should you skip the bad ones?  Do you have any relatives who live close by who you can visit 2x or 3x? Did someone in your group slow you down? Is there a local mall with stores giving out candy?

5S that Candy Pile

• Sort out the bad candy
• Straighten the piles-gum in one, ‘good candy’ in another-you get the idea.
• Sweep out those wrappers-you shouldn’t have been eating as you were trick or treating-see VSM step above-but it is Candy time-so you are forgiven.
• Standardize-figure out where the candy sh ould go and mark it off-put that ‘good candy’ in a place your parents and siblings won’t find it, get the ‘bad candy’ in a place siblings and parents can see it-so they only take the bad stuff.  Put gum in a place at home and do not let it get in your school bag-teachers will confiscate it!
• Sustain-don’t mix the piles, find where your parents and siblings keep their candy and replenish your stock.

Must machine builders set up operations in Europe to comply with the new requirements?

The single market is a free market and provides no barriers to suppliers from outside the EU from placing their products on the market. However, there is an important change in the procedures for machine manufacturers exporting into Europe. Such machine builders must identify the person, established in the community, authorized to compile the technical file for the machine.

Planning on going to a Halloween party...

Planning on going to a Halloween party this year, but just can’t stand the thought of not being home to give kids candy? Automate your candy dispensing and decorations with Pilz products.

Mount SafetyEYE® over front door. Program zones so that as the kids move they trigger spooky sounds. Bonus: SafetyEYE® takes snapshots of faults, so you’ll still get to see the kids all dressed up.

Instead of using wooden fencing around your spooky Halloween graveyard, use PSENopt light curtains.

Use the PNOZm3p multi for burner management to control fire under a cauldron or to create a devilish scene complete with fire and brimstone.

Program a touchscreen PMI so kids can make their candy selection. Use the PNOZsigma relay to control the distribution of the candy through chutes.

These are just a few of our ideas; we’d love to hear how you would automate your Halloween decorations and candy distribution.

Overall motion management

Motion control system controls and automates packaging machines
Packaging machines in the pharmaceutical sector are demanding: they have to be reliable, modular and versatile, but most of all they have to be flexible and efficient. The requirements of the corresponding drive and automation system are equally high. Pilz motion control manages the movement of all the servo axes to ensure that complex workflows from infeed to cartoning do not fall out of sync and so that products can be switched at the touch of a button.

With impressive speed and the rhythmic sounds of all these simultaneous processes, foil-packaged tablets stream out of the machine on four channels at once. The machine operation is fully automatic; the actual packaging process is barely visible to the eye. Within seconds, knives transform the endless sheets into manageable sizes, which then find their way into standard cartons with the package inserts included.

Tablets in the morning, maybe capsules in the afternoon, but both need to be sealed on the same machine. Packaging on pharmaceutical products calls for innovative concepts, the wide range of products and packaging sizes demand flexible solutions. Stored process parameters mean that packaging machines can be changed over quickly at the touch of a button, guaranteeing cost effectiveness. Each system must be modular and easily expandable according to need; what’s more, only those plant sections that are currently in use should be active.

As a subsidiary of the international company Romaco-Pharmatechnik GmbH, Romaco develops packaging machines specifically for the pharmaceutical industry. Part of the product portfolio of the Karlsruhe, Germany-based company includes heat sealing machines, which seal pharmaceutical products in film so that they are air and moisture-tight and provide a perfect fit for the relevant shape. The company offers a flexible selection of machinery covering a wide range of functions in accordance with individual customer requirements.

A key component of a versatile packaging machine designed for a variety of tasks is a sealing roller with an asynchronous motor, which sets the timing for all subsequent axes via incremental encoders. A conveyor system feeds in the product for packaging, which is then inserted synchronously into the sealing roller. The heated sealing rollers take the liner material from rollers on both sides, forming an airtight enclosure around the pharmaceutical product. Servo motors drive the axes on a packaging machine. They guarantee a rapid reaction to changing process parameters and therefore a high degree of flexibility in production. 

Pilz motion control (PMC) is responsible for the reliable, synchronous, fully automatic control and coordination of the individual drive axes and motion elements on the heat sealing machines. Precision is the trump card.  For example, the intelligent control and automation solution ensures that the imprint on a pre-printed seal is always positioned in the middle of the tablet pack, or that the lengthways and crossways cut on the packaged product always separates exactly in the middle of two tablets, and that the perforation blade puts the tear line needed to separate individual tablets exactly where it belongs, to within a tenth of a millimeter. Any variations in dimension due to varying fill quantities are adjusted automatically by the controller during operation. “The automation system manages all the movements of a large number of physically separate servo axes within a plant or application”, explains Harald Dietel, Head of Product Management at Pilz. In addition to the original motion control tasks the system also undertakes the machine’s automation in conjunction with the integrated PLC.

There are two different types available: You can either employ the drive-integrated PMCprimo Drive (up to nine axes) or the controller-based PMCprimo 16+ (up to over 100 axes), depending on the number of axes used. PMCprimo Drive is integrated directly within the motor amplifier and can incorporate up to eight additional drives. At the same time it performs the task of a central controller. In this configuration the system contains everything required for the complete automation of small or medium-sized machinery, such as the packaging machine described above. PMCprimo Drive works economically right from the first axis; it reduces the amount of wiring involved and saves space within the control cabinet. If you need to control more than nine axes or larger plants, the PMCprimo 16+ is the system to choose as a central controller. It can be used to implement complex motion and control functions with well over 100 axes. Servo amplifiers, servo motors, panels and many other components required for automation technology help to round off the system.

Whether you are planning a new design or a retrofit for your machine, whether you want a small machine or need whole packaging lines equipped with infeed, packer, cartoning station, palletizer or pick-and-place: both the drive and controller based solutions offer the optimum hardware basis for any application. Pilz motion control is expandable, remaining open and flexible to developments of any type. Both versions have something in common: less work is required during implementation and programming. Numerous function blocks for automating axis movement are available and ready to use. To activate functions such as “cross cutting” for example, just start this up from the menu and set reasonable parameters. The system will detect any implausible combinations and not allow them.

There was a whole range of reasons why Romaco Siebler opted for Pilz motion control for their heat sealing machines.  “Simplicity and expandability were the convincing arguments. Because of the large number of compatible functions, it took hardly any effort to implement the entire system, and that includes parameter setting and diagnostics”, stressed Martin Schneider, electrical design engineer at Romaco Pharmatechnik GmbH in Karlsruhe. Selection was made even easier by the compact design and the fact that both control and automation functions are included in one system and are from one source. “Competent advice and project backing convinced us that we made the right decision” added Jürgen Kratzmeier, Technical Manager at Romaco Pharmatechnik GmbH.

Pilz wants to go one step further in the future: The plan for the next controller generation is that it should combine the various requirements of standard control technology, safety technology and motion control in one system.

Pilz is a global company, as such, not all standards and information will be applicable worldwide. Please check with your local Pilz office to ensure your factory and/or machines meet local standards.

Fast, precise and safe

Proven safety technology for flow wrapping machinexs

Whether it’s powder, liquid or solid: many products cut a better figure in a plastic pouch. Flow wrapping machines not only seal a wide range of products, they also persuade through a whole assortment of attractive pouch types. The machines work quickly and reliably, can be converted to new tasks in no time at all and take up very little space. Pilz safety technology ensures there's no conflict between productivity and safety.

With impressive speed the machine pulls the plastic web over several guide rollers and on to the forming shoulder: it is here that the film web is made into a tube package, which can be filled with pieced, powder, paste, granulated or liquid products as required. A discharge belt pulls the wrap down along the wall of the filling tube, the longitudinal sealing tool seals the film tube vertically. Once filled, the transverse sealing tool seals the packaging horizontally and the blade separates the bags. The benefits of flow wrapping: It can be adapted to suit almost any packaged product perfectly, it enables vacuum packaging and, because the film is transparent, the type and quality of the contents is clearly visible. Whether you need a stand-up, flat or side-sealed pouch: flow wrapping machines can now handle an impressive variety of shapes and solutions.
Rovema Verpackungsmaschinen GmbH is based in Germany and offers a wide range of packaging and cartoning machines for the most wide-ranging products and application areas. The Rovema Group has branches worldwide and currently employs around 700 staff. Flow wrapping machines are a key component in the Rovema portfolio. “The demand today is for intelligent packaging solutions which set standards and are based on the respective requirements at the point of sale. At the same time they must be economical and future-proof", says Walter Maurer, who is responsible for electrical design and standardisation at Rovema.

Perfect packaging in the shortest possible time
The medium-sized company supplies intermittent horizontal/vertical, continuous vertical and double axis flow wrapping machines with a linear motor. The machines are always modular and open for future tasks and trend changes.  All the flow wrapping machines have compact dimensions and can be operated in stand-alone mode as well as in a network with other plant and machinery.

As shown, the packaging material on the VPL flow wrapping machine is fed from rollers and the machine operates vertically: The product to be packaged is fed in to the bag via a collection container and down-tube; the filling, sealing and separating process runs continuously. A non-wearing linear motor is the main drive for the transverse sealing station. Some of the outstanding features of the VPL flow wrapping machine include: its wide format range with high performance, the ability to store individual production programs, freely programmable sealing times and high sealing pressures, plus the vacuum film draw down unit which guarantees consistent bag lengths even with extremely thin films (from 20 µm). The high pressure of the transverse sealing tools means that the sealed seams are especially tight. The use of special magnesium alloys for moving parts minimises the mass moment of inertia and increases output. If necessary it is also easy to integrate additional features such as pulse welding, a zip strip applicator for producing re-closable bags, edge profiling and online diagnostics via modem.

Safe, efficient processes
High availability and highly automated processes require an efficient safety management in the background, which will not only exclude any risk to operators in the event of a fault but will also prevent serious damage to the machine. However, safety-related equipment must not work to the detriment of productivity. In other words: safety technology is intended to protect the operator from injury, but must not obstruct him in his work any more than is necessary. In issues concerning safety, Pilz has enjoyed an excellent reputation in the mechanical engineering sector for many years.  “We choose Pilz because the company is the recognised manufacturer for safety technology on the market. That’s why our machines only leave this factory fitted with Pilz safety solutions”, stresses Walter Maurer. As with all their other flow wrapping machines, the VPL is fitted with PNOZ safety relays. When these are operated, the machine comes to an immediate stop.  Non-contact electromagnetic safety switches PSENmag monitor the sliding gates and covers to ensure they are securely locked, the safety relays evaluate the signals. Should an operator open one of the access gates during the filling phase, the machine will immediately switch to a safe condition.

Rovema can now look back on fifteen years of co-operation with the safety specialists from Ostfildern near Stuttgart. One of the reasons for the successful business partnership is that the development of new packaging solutions always goes hand in hand with the integration of modern safety solutions. When it comes to new and continuing developments, Pilz is one of the first at the table as a partner for safety. “Our partnership is characterised by the quality and reliability of the products, the expertise of Pilz's external sales engineers and, finally, trusting co-operation", says Walter Maurer, summing up. An excellent basis for some good business in the future.

Our company currently uses the procedure of sending a technical file for review and retention by a notified body. What options do we have?

This specific procedure will no longer exist under the new Directive. Beginning December 29, 2009, manufacturers of products placed on the market on the basis of these procedures will have to apply one of the procedures set out in the new Directive 2006/42/EC. For machines manufactured in accordance with harmonized standards that cover all the relevant health and safety requirements and are competently assessed, the manufacturer will be able to certify the conformity of the product him/herself.