Almost all industrial plastic and rubber manufacturing processes require small components (also called chemicals) to characterize the product.
Your product often differs from that of your competitors just by the use of these chemicals.
Consequently weighing these components properly is essential to have a repeat product that always meets the characteristics for which it is known.
The preparation of these components is almost always manual.
This is because, as I am sure you know, productions are small or highly variable and it would be impossible and very expensive to equip yourself with automatic batchers for all the components you use.
The common choice therefore is to equip oneself with 2-3 electronic scales where the operator weighs the components by reading the recipe from a sheet or for the more modern ones from a PC.
The problem is that these components are really responsible for the characteristics of your product and an incorrect dosage could force you to recall entire production batches.
My name is Claudio Tosi and I am in the business of finding the best automation solutions for plastic and rubber industries that need to dose or mix components.
How to solve the problem of weighing small components by hand without making mistakes, keeping everything tracked and not wasting too much time on these operations?
This is the question we have been asking ourselves for a long time. In the market you had only two options:
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Connect the scale to a PC with special software that checks the components you are weighing (e.g., with barcodes) and prevents you from making tolerance errors;
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Buy expensive automatic machines to more or less automatically dose the components;
These are both good solutions but they have some limitations. Let me show you them.
Manual scale connected to PC
The PC-connected manual scale is a suitable solution only for small production runs as long as the software is integrated into the main automation (like ours). In this case the recipe is unique and you instruct the software, depending on what you have to produce, to send the components to be weighed to the manual scale or to the automated system.
If we have a component code label we can read it with a barcode and limit errors on component selection as well.
The limitations of this solution are that the operator has to waste time retrieving the raw material in the warehouse and has to do all the operations by hand, so he has a low hourly production and still can make mistakes.
Automatic machine
Automatic machines are ideal for repetitive and very large productions. When you have to make 20-30 equal bags for different productions, weighing them by hand is too great a limitation.
Here again, however, we have problems to consider: the machine is very expensive, easily exceeding 600K for 18 components, requires space and specialized personnel to run it and do maintenance, requires personnel to keep it in production even if it is automatic.
Recently there has been a third possibility.
Thanks to our experience, we have created a dosing machine that on the one hand allows you to manually dose as many components as you want, and on the other hand makes the operator’s life easier by moving the containers with the weighed products and especially by automatically dosing up to 7 components.
This machine is called DosareX and, in its most complete version, DosareX Vertical. The latter is also equipped with an automatic warehouse to better manage the raw material, avoid dirt and mess, and always provide the operator with the component to be weighed exactly when needed.
In this way we overcome all the problems of the manual scale connected to the PC and have only a fraction of the cost of a fully automatic machine.
It works like this:
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Once the production to be done is received from the plant software or MES or ERP, the automatic warehouse prepares the first components while the operator loads the empty containers that will later be filled (or puts the bags inside the containers);
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The software points to the component to be weighed and asks for barcode verification even though the warehouse already brings it in front of him and clearly indicates it;
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The operator weighs the required quantity. The machine advances only if the weight is in tolerance;
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The machine moves the container with the weighed component and brings the second empty container in front of the operator to repeat the operation;
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Meanwhile, the automatic feeders dose the quantity set in the recipe without wasting time;
In this way, in a short time, we get bags or containers with the right amount loaded, with all the traceability verified limiting the efforts but especially the errors of the operator.
To adapt it to the needs of different companies, the machine has several optional components that you can always add over time.
This way you start with a limited investment but if you need something more you can always add it.
For example, you can start with the basic station with just the DosareX table and a manual scale and in the future add the automatic magazine or the feeders loaded either manually or with an automatic system.
Or start with 1 automatic feeder and the DosareX table and in the future add more manual feeders or scales and finally the automatic magazine.
We designed this machine for the plastic and rubber industry, but it can be used by anyone who needs to prepare recipes with small components or needs to do small laboratory or sampling production.
We have the right solution for every manual dosage need: request a free consultation.
Want to see how DosareX Vertical works?
Watch the video at this address: https://dosarex.com/vertical. You will also find a calculator to find out the target price.
Write an email to multidata@multidata.it or call us at +39 059 537902, we will give you all the information you need and tell you in your specific case what can really be done and what benefits you will get.
Buona vita
Claudio Tosi
