Packaging (Bottles, Draft, Cans) Session
Stefan Flad, Chair of Food packaging technologie - TUM, Freising, Germany
Co-author(s): Tobias Voigt, Chair of Food Packaging Technologie, TUM, Freising, Germany
ABSTRACT: Problem bottling is a very cost-intensive part of beer and liquids production. One problem is that the efficiency of bottling plants isn’t high enough. To increase the efficiency of the plant, operators need to know the critical points of their plant. In addition they need to measure the influence of different parameters on efficiency. For this, the LVT (Chair of Food Packaging Technology) of TUM (Technische Universität München) and partners started the research project LineMET, which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. LineMET should generate an efficiency analysis tool that helps the operator to find critical points and influences of different parameters automatically using operating data. Based on the research presented at the 2007 MBAA Convention by A. Kather, LineMET had the following goals: development of an integrated efficiency analysis tool (demonstrator application); extension of the component library (LineMod) for model base diagnosis; extension of the LineMod system boundary to rate influences from logistics and intralogistics to the plant; extension of the diagnosis functions to complex patterns; and development of a tool to generate line models from the component library methods. The project was divided in four parts. One was a database that contains data points according to the Weihenstephan Standards. This information is enough for key performance indicator (KPI) calculation and line diagnosis. The most important part from a scientific point of view was the model based diagnosis, where LineMod, the model library, was extended. New components were built, like split and merge for splitting/merging object flows. With this library nearly all kinds of filling plants could be modeled. The extension of the models to analyze minor speed of bottling plants was also a result. Another part was the development of ATLAS. ATLAS is a graphic tool to build plant models. Users only need to rebuild their line with drag and drop out of the component library and to set some parameter, like death time of conveyors. The last part is visualization. LineMET gives examples of how to visualize the diagnostic results and to calculate article related KPIs. It is important to investigate influences of bottle type or product, for example on the efficiency of the whole plant. LineMET had two big results. 1) Model based diagnosis can now be used for bottling plants. The determination of reasons for filler downtime is now possible, with a rate over 85%, and all types of bottling plants can be modeled. 2) A demonstrator application was implemented in a commercial tool. It calculates article related KPIs based on real plant data. The only requirement is that the plant provides data according to the Weihenstephan Standards.
Stefan Flad, born in 1982 in Freising, received the university entrance diploma in 2002 at the Dom-Gymnasium in Freising. After that he studied from 2003 until 2008 at the Technical University of Munich, Garching. In 2008 he graduated as an engineer (Dipl.-Ing.) for mechatronics and information techniques. Focus areas were microtechnics and control engineering. In late 2008 he started as a Ph.D. student at the Chair of Food Packaging Technology, Technical University of Munich. He was project coordinator of the LineMET project. He works on the member committee of the Weihenstephan Standards for data acquisition and teaches process control engineering at TUM.
