Installation of a gravimeter on extruders

A project in cooperation with the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Crafts and HAMAG BICRO

In its current business operations, Optiplast used standard extruders in the phase of extrusion. Problems occurred due to the uneven foil thickness being drawn out from the extruder, which created a particular problem in the confectioning process, since, due to the thickness, one product was lighter and the other heavier and the foil surface was uneven. In addition, foil which does not have a uniform quality slows down the work of the confectionary, which in turn reduces the amount of product obtained. As production technology advanced, manufacturers have designed a machine called a gravimeter, which is mounted on the base machine (extruder), which enables a 4-component dosing of materials to improve the quality of the foil obtained and the control of thickness tolerance of the finished product. The main object of investment is the purchase of two gravimeters, which are planned to be mounted on two existing Tecom extruders.

The basic effects of their mounting are as follows:

• Automatic monitoring of drawing out of the foil and achieving a uniform foil film thickness
• Reduction of use of raw material (approximately 2-3%)
• Adjusting the speed of dosing with the speed of the machine, which will impact the achievement of a uniform colour of the obtained foil
• Reduction of scrap in the confectioning process since the finished products that did not meet the conditions of thickness and smoothness of the surface were thrown into recycling and sometimes 10-20% of the total production would finish there.

The use of gravimeters will also improve the work conditions for the employees because they will no longer have to manually mix 4 types of raw materials into the silos, but the material will be pulled into the mixture by an automated method from the box and dosed at the desired percentage. The choice of the gravimetric technology depends on its compatibility with the existing Tecom brand extruders from Italy. Only two gravimeters models were found on the market; of one of the two chosen machines, one model was technologically conditioned to be installed on the extruder model, and the second was chosen according to the lower price principle, since there was no technological limitation.

General information on the project
Name of project Installation of gravimeters on extruders
Responsible body HAMAG BICRO and MINPO
User Optiplast Ltd.
Duration of the project 24.7.2014 – 24.7.2015
Value 294.675,18 kn

Secured with the support of the Government of the Republic of Croatia

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