Fermacell

At a Glance:

• Industry: Construction
• Fully Automated Packaging Line
• Siemens S7 Controller
• Parts Tracking via RPCS
• Project Duration: 20 weeks

Background

A packaging line was to be built for XELLA – Fermacell, the world’s leading manufacturer of gypsum fiberboard.

The initial situation was that, at a manual workstation on the packaging line, corner protectors, quality control labels, promotional strips, and, finally, the packaging film were manually attached one by one to each product (stacked gypsum fiber boards) using staples.

Challenge

In the future, these tasks should be performed automatically on the packaging line, although the manual workstation should be retained as a contingency plan.

Implementation

The line was divided into a total of 5 stations.

Station 1 = Manual workstation as a contingency plan

Station 2 = Robotic cell for applying corner protectors and quality control labels

Station 3 = Ad-Carrying Stapler

Station 4 = Apply film using a stretch-wrap packaging machine

Station 5 = Product inspection using a forklift

Immediately after the manual workstation, the stacked pallets are transported through the packaging line on a 4-strand chain conveyor. The stacked gypsum fiber boards are guided through the stations mentioned earlier.

A 6-axis industrial robot uses hot-melt adhesive to attach the corner protectors and the quality control label—which is printed or labeled in sync with the cycle time depending on the product type—to the side of the stack of gypsum fiber boards.

The advertising insert stapler, positioned on both sides of the chain conveyor, automatically staples the advertising inserts to the product as it passes through. The stapler can hold/buffer approximately 500 advertising inserts.

The electrical control system is based on a SIEMENS S7 PLC. Parts and model management and tracking were made possible by our in-house software system, RPCS.