Enhancing package printing efficiency by minimizing changeover time

The Challenge

Changeovers in package printing involve intricate processes such as cylinder swaps, ink changes, and critical part cleaning. While many machines include embedded features designed to support changeovers, printers still often struggle to accurately calculate the time required for these transitions.

Recognizing the critical importance of minimizing changeover time, a US-based package printing manufacturer turned to ei³'s comprehensive data collection solutions for monitoring industrial printing machines.

The Solution

ei³ has a comprehensive library of proven data collection solutions for monitoring both web-fed and sheet-fed industrial printing machines. The running and production status of these machines are recorded in the ei³ cloud using data values from within the existing press control systems. Every major press manufacturer has a PLC controller or computer management system with easily accessible stop codes, including error codes and stop reasons, that are ready for integration into the cloud. These digital signals indicate why the press stopped.

The DOWNTIME app from ei³ analyzes these industrial press downtime reasons and maps the individual machine codes into customer-defined downtime reasons in the time tracking database.

Standardized Downtime Classification

Mapping downtime reasons into a standardized structure is essential for comparing diverse values from various printing machines. For instance, a web break may have different codes and terminology across different press manufacturers. ei³ streamlines this by mapping all web break events to a common downtime reason, facilitating comparison. Reports generated by DOWNTIME offer insights into Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), enabling machine owners to assess and improve restart processes.

A view inside the Downtime app, highlighting how often specific error codes occur on a machine, their duration, and average repair times.

Operator Input

The DOWNTIME app becomes even more powerful with the active involvement of machine operators. Operators contribute valuable insights by adding their own codes and comments through ei³ apps. This allows them to report reasons for stopping the machine, including job changeovers, company meetings, or breaks. The collected data enables machine owners to evaluate changeover times according to various parameters, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Operators can add additional information about downtime events and update or correct reason codes when needed

Results

• 5% Reduction in Unplanned Downtime: Achieved after six months of implementing the Downtime app. Experienced sustained improvement, indicating the ongoing effectiveness in optimizing operational efficiency for package printing.

• PDCA Continuous Improvement: Implemented a continuous improvement approach by incorporating Pareto analysis into the plan, do, check, and act (PDCA) process. Applied proactive measures, including pre-staging job changeovers and utilizing press-time based Return on Investment (ROI) to prevent web breaks.

About the Manufacturer

A leading packaging printing manufacturer based in the United States. This Fortune 500 corporation operates over 60 production sites worldwide.