Digital Plastics

Today’s plastic and rubber manufacturers are facing fierce competition.

Part changeover is needed more frequently and plastic processors need to be agile and responsive in order to stay competitive. The solution is flexible automation systems, where plastic processors are looking at six axis robots to produce a wider range of products and variants of consistent quality.

Like in other industry segments, digitalization is making inroads in the plastics and rubber sector. In a situation with lower automation costs and a demand for increased productivity, plastic processors turn to injection moulding machine manufacturers to supply intelligent manufacturing solutions. Solutions where moulding machines adapt to and communicate with peripheral equipment, including robots.

To facilitate this, separate control systems exchange production data, which when analysed can uncover ways of optimizing the production process. Advanced real-time, proactive and predictive robot services allow plastics and rubber processors to plan their maintenance more efficiently, resulting in increased uptime and productivity.

A good example of ABB’s commitment to digitalization is its Connected Services offering, which is built on ABB’s experience in Remote Services going back nearly a decade with over 5,000 connected robots. The efficient and reliable factory of the future is unlocked by taking advantage of more sensors and better communications to make actionable data available anytime, and anyplace. This can help manufacturers prevent up to 25% of incidents and speed issue resolution and response times by up to 60%.

Learn more about ABB Connected Services here.