Emerson and Arrowhead Systems Inc. have partnered to produce a next-generation, machine health monitoring solution, which will increase uptime for high-speed palletizer production used in container stacking but is also adaptable for use with other primary products. 

The Busse SJI Viper™ high speed bulk palletizer and Alpha Turbo ^TM high speed depalletizer are paired with Emerson’s machine health monitoring to give customers a solution for greater overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) by monitoring, in real-time, critical motion and pneumatic system parameters including air flow, pressure, vacuum, mechanical actuation speeds and motor vibration. System analytics and health information is processed at the edge via a local data historian with both local display or remote monitoring on a tablet or smartphone giving operators an easily accessible tool to monitor health.

“This solution offers the quickest and most scalable way to increase OEE and ultimately increase the overall production efficiency of your plant operations,” said Dana Greenly, director of business development, food and beverage packaging with Emerson’s Automation Solutions business.

The new, edge-based system has the PACSystems CPL410 at its core to bring all sensor data together for accessibility, visualization and analysis. It is customizable and scalable to adapt to any primary product palletizing system or complete packaging line. With real-time monitoring of machine health and diagnostics at the operator’s fingertips, reactive maintenance to machine failures goes away. Predictive maintenance enables planning for potential issues which otherwise negatively affect the OEE of the packaging line.

“Because we have container handling equipment running at some of the highest speeds in the industry, reaching 4,000 cans per minute or more, predictive monitoring of machine health is vital to our customers’ success,” said Scott Chehak, general manager, Busse-SJI.