Sustainable Plastics - March/April 2023 - 20

recycling
continued from page 19
chain as secondary raw materials
so that new products can
be created. Crucially, however,
these new products must have
the same high quality as the
original products from which
they are made. Recycling only
makes sense financially and
environmentally if it saves energy,
water, space, and cost. In
short, recycling has to be resource-eff
icient - something
Erema has understood from the
very beginning.
Erema was also quick to recognise
the growing importance
of the digitalisation trend of
the past few years. One of the
partners it works with closely
is Copa-Data, an independent
software provider founded in
1987 in Salzburg, Austria, that
has developed a software platform
known as zenon. This
software was deployed on the
Erema recycling machines with
the aim of boosting eff iciency
in engineering and operations
through data visualisation and
visual control.
The zenon software platform
provides one integrated environment
that combines data
recording, machine operation,
and business intelligence. Easy
to use, it enables the engineering
and automated operation of
manufacturing and infrastructure
equipment, thus supporting
its user's transition to a digital
manufacturing environment.
Erema uses programmable
logic controllers (PLCs) from a
leading European manufacturer
to control the individual machines
and subsystems.
" Due to their complexity, a
higher-level solution is required
for controlling, operating, and
monitoring the entire machine, "
said Siegfried Blaslbauer, Erema
automation engineer.
" In order to map the various
system complexities, the solution
must be easy to operate
and scalable without onerous
engineering eff ort. "
Equipment visualization
with zenon
Erema began using zenon for
machine visualization in 1999.
At that time, zenon was not the
standard solution but was being
off ered as an option. Blasl20
March/April
2023
bauer, who by then had been
working at the recycling machine
manufacturer for more
than a decade, explained that
zenon's ability to archive production
and operating data
was one of the main reasons
for choosing the software platform.
Other supervisory control
and data acquisition (SCADA)
systems, he said, could not offer
the same scope, speed, or
quality at the time.
" It was important for us to be
able to use standard modules
in engineering without adding
complex programming, and we
wanted to be able to create visualization
projects simply by
setting parameters, " Blaslbauer
explained. " As well as enabling
this, zenon makes the task even
easier with the option of mapping
diff erent machine configurations
using recipes. "
One system for every
requirement
The software's ease of use -
in addition to the fact that it can
be flexibly extended and adapted
- very quickly led to its becoming
the standard for visualisation
on Erema machines. The
automation engineers at the
company make use of the varied
functionalities of the software
platform, including batch
tracking and energy monitoring.
As an open platform, zenon
supports easy integration into
the value chain.
" In addition to the simple integration
of the PLC systems,
one of the things that speaks in
favour of zenon is that it makes
it easy to use solutions from
many industries, " said Blaslbauer.
" These integrated solution
packages help us to make
running our machines particularly
operationally eff icient and
energy-eff icient. "
Today, Erema uses zenon to
cover all visualization needs of
its machines and systems, including
comprehensive higher-level
control of large, complex
systems. The software is equally
suitable for connecting MES
systems, for example, to integrate
shift or maintenance plans.
The automation specialists
at Erema rely on zenon's automation
in their engineering.
They use Smart Objects found
Sustainable Plastics - March/April 2023

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