Sustainability and digitization are highly topical issues for the international economic system and have heavily influenced the business fabric: just look at the position taken by the ecological transaction and digital transformation within the Euro Next Generation EU plan.
The same is true in Italy, which has allocated over 30% of the resources provided for in the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) to the green revolution, for the development of hydrogen energy and digitization.
After all, the EU objectives set for 2030 to combat climate change are stringent:
– 55% of greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990, – 32% of energy consumption, and the use of renewable energy for 32%. Therefore, polluting is ever more costly.
BMR has always directed a large part of its investments into Research & Development as a commitment to the green economy, monitoring water and energy consumption, those of raw materials, and supporting the reuse of waste in the production process.
The first step in this green evolution was the “DRY” technology, already presented in 2010 as part of squaring with Squadra Dry and now also applied to all other treatment, cutting and splitting machines. A radical change for the ceramic plant sector, which has been able to take advantage of increasingly productive and efficient technologies and, at the same time, capable of inducing significant water, energy and economic savings, as well as improving the quality of work of the operators.
DRY technology has undergone various evolutionary stages over the years, becoming increasingly dependable and digital, and today it has reached a new generation: SQUADRA DRY VISION.
Conceived to guarantee high performance, with considerable benefits in terms of energy saving and respect for the environment. This is the new Squadra Dry Vision, a dry technology squaring machine equipped with vision controls integrated with the squaring logic present at the line input and output, with the inclusion of single inverters for calibrating motors. In all a solution that guarantees energy, consumption and tool cost savings. The system cuts in downstream of each processing module, carrying out an accurate check of numerous parameters: uniformity of the edges (chamfer), checking for any chipping, validation of the work size with feedback, verification of the diagonals, flatness and possible structural defects. In this way, a higher percentage of first choice production is guaranteed and a consequent reduction in labour and process costs, thus respecting the environment and eco-sustainability standards.
The performances of the new Squadra Dry Vision have been tested in pre-release at the factories of one of the most well-known tile producers, a trusted customer of BMR, who has always been careful to combine efficiency, design and green commitment. The result is the confirmation of an overall technological improvement and an upgrading in terms of digitization, with a production efficiency and a significant reduction in consumption.
The dry squaring VISION evolution comes as a standard version with 9 motors for a total of 36 spindles and removes up to 6-8 mm per side with an important saving in terms of installed power. The line evolves over two modules that perform the peripheral grinding at 90° and the relative chamfering of the edges of the ceramic tiles in porcelain stoneware, porous single-fired and double-fired. Then, each module is governed by a PC that controls the drive motorization and the centring and squaring devices independently. The innovative features are mainly:
- The use of tools with BMR FAST technology, the new quick coupling for BMR tools;
- Complete electronic control of the process outside the silent booth: the checking and adjustment of upstream and downstream measurements are performed automatically;
- Electronic size adjustment through an external control unit;
- Possibility of grinding wheel wear recovery.
All production parameters are then kept under control by a single terminal that regularly records and saves the data produced by the machine: from those of consumption, duration, efficiency of the grinding wheel to those of material removed; this is followed by statistical reports that allow production to be maximized and downtime, size change, breakages or inaccuracies minimized.
This is an important dialogue capability of the machine which also allows the operator to manage the line more easily and become more of a supervisor, automatically controlling the processing from a remote station outside the soundproofing booth or even when away from the company plant.
Furthermore, the data thus obtained mean no more approximate but precise assessments, which quantify the performance indices of the line with respect to the preset quality parameters. The current installation, in fact, has made it possible to prove the savings in grinding wheel consumption up to 30% and the reduction in size and cone changeover times to less than 5 minutes.
This digitization system then allows the work recipes to be managed and renewed, building an optimal archive absolutely commensurate with the product, size, thickness, but also in relation to specific performance indices (speed, consumption, etc.) .
Squadra Dry Vision is therefore confirmed as an extremely advanced solution in terms of technology and versatile, since it adapts to the production needs of companies and interacts in a functional way with the existing lines.
Another fact of great interest is also the ability of Squadra Dry Vision to be supported by the various supervision systems, such as HERE by SACMI: a specially designed application making it easier to control and manage the process at any point in the factory.
It is a modular software platform, accessible from a normal browser and usable from any device connected to the servers where HERE is installed, including tablets and smartphones.
The interface design follows international standards, also common in commercial applications other than HERE, so as to facilitate operator learning and ensure a pleasant user experience. Thanks to the interconnection with the machines and with the ERP, HERE becomes a fundamental point of reference for managing activities. This module allows dashboards to be created that contain widgets for displaying information: each dashboard can contain multiple widgets.
The widgets can be of different types (bargraph, pie chart, area chart, etc.) and each of them can be configured by choosing different parameters. The most common configurations are:
- Analysis time period (e.g. last day, last week, last month, last year);
- Type of grouping (e.g. by day, by month, by year);
- Variables: these are organized hierarchically by department, line and machine and, for the widgets that provide for the display of multiple quantities, it is possible to choose between different machines/lines/departments. The available data are Production counters, or KPI (Key Performance Indicators), or Machine or line operating status.
The users can create their own dashboards by assigning a name and defining the widgets to be displayed within it. The created dashboards will be available on Grindstones.
The Grindstones module allows the collection and chronicling of grinding wheel consumption data for new generation BMR grinding lines, equipped with cameras. The module provides sections for the characterization of the grinding wheels used in the plant. In particular, it is possible to define the types (e.g. roughing out, intermediate, finishing) and the main characteristics (e.g. grain, segment) in the system navigation menu. This information is shared with the connected grinding lines, so that it can be used during wheel change procedures on the machine.
The module then elaborates performance indicators referring to the wear of the abrasive thickness of the grinding wheels: the data obtained can be analysed in special widgets available in a dedicated section of the module and in the Dashboards module.
The module will allow the performance data to be analysed calculated based on:
- Time period (hour, day, week, month, …);
- Machine;
- Position of the grinding wheel in the machine;
- Grinding wheel supplier;
- Type and characteristics of the grinding wheel;
- Size (if present HERE Order Basics module and if the machine allows it);
- Article (if present HERE Order Basics module and if the machine allows it);
- Order (if present HERE Order Basics module and if the machine allows it.