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Everything is connected

The cloud-based data and remote service platform Bobst Connect plays a central role in realising the vision of the transforming the packaging world.

The cloud-based data and remote service platform Bobst Connect plays a central role in realising the company’s vision for the future. This aims to fundamentally transform the packaging world and thus lead to a better future. The keys to this are networking, digitalisation and automation of workflows, as well as the switch to more sustainable packaging materials and production processes.

Since mid-2022, Bobst has equipped all new machines supplied to the market with Bobst Connect Essential. The company is thus enabling its customers to digitally transform their processes. This follows a strategic roadmap in which the functionality of the new cloud-based platform is gradually being expanded in close cooperation with customers. With Recipe Management for AccuCheck and Tool Management, Bobst presented further groundbreaking innovations in June 2023.

Digitise the value chain

In Bobst’s vision, the value chain of the packaging industry is completely digitalised. „The digital revolution in the packaging industry is forcing all companies to break new ground, to question their previous ways of working, to think in terms of holistic and digital processes, and to use networks and platforms to develop new business models for their customers,“ explains Bobst Group CEO Jean-Pascal Bobst . „Bobst’s industrial vision, based on the four pillars of networking, digitalisation, automation and sustainability, is highly supportive of this transformation.“

With the new machine solutions equipped with Bobst Connect Essential, customers can call up production data and other information on these machines at any time and with any terminal device. Bobst is thus paving the way to powerful digital services for the data-based optimisation of their production processes.

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In the first step, Bobat Connect primarily provided functions for monitoring the most important machine data. The latest expansion stage of the cloud-based data and remote service platform now also offers a wide range of options for efficient control and optimisation of production in real-time.

„The new functions make the benefits of Bobst Connect much more tangible for many of our customers, making their machine processes more transparent than ever before and thus creating the prerequisite for effective production management.“

Manfred Bauer, IoT expert at Bobst

Digital twins of the machines

The cloud-based data and remote service platform makes machine processes transparent and thus create the prerequisite for effective production management.
The cloud-based data and remote service platform makes machine processes transparent and thus create the prerequisite for effective production management. (Image: Bobst)

The basis for this is formed by dashboards (shop floor and production performance dashboards), which Bobst has developed in close cooperation with pilot customers and tested on their production floors. Taken together, these dashboards visualise production performance like digital twins. For example, plant and operations managers can access the „virtual machines“ via these dashboards, either from their desks or mobile and see their current operating statuses and the most important performance data in real-time. Which order for which customer is currently running on the machine? When did production start? How many packages of this order have already been produced? The answers to these and many other questions are visible at a glance.

The same applies to the KPI (Key Performance Indicator) and the Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE). Both availability, set-up times and machine speeds as well as downtimes and produced quality (good parts/rejects) are transparently visualised on the intuitive dashboard interfaces, which have been thought through with customers down to the last detail, in the form of trend displays, percentages and diagrams. All displays are characterised by clarity and colourful graphics.

Clearly structured information base

The shop floor dashboards give production managers a quick overview of the operating status of all Bobst machines connected to Bobst Connect in their plant(s). Among other things, in the form of trend displays on the most important OEE and KPI data.

Production performance dashboards provide even deeper insights into the performance data of the machines. Like a digital recording of the production, they show at a glance all the OEE data provided by the machines over the time displayed. For example, the availability of the machines is shown in the form of a diagram of the machine status. Green sections visualise the productive times, yellow sections the set-up times and red sections the downtimes. In these dashboards, users can choose whether they want to view individual orders, shifts or entire production days for target-performance comparisons, for example. The interactive interface offers them the possibility to dynamically zoom into the graphics and enlarge sections, making more detailed information visible at any point in the production process.

„In the production performance dashboards, our customers can easily compare jobs, shifts or days, for example, and summarise OEE key figures such as set-up times or downtimes. With the help of these comparisons, efficiency and quality losses can be identified and thus changed in a targeted manner. These options are particularly popular with our customers,“ says Bauer. In addition, the production performance dashboards provide comprehensive statistics for evaluations.

Transparent production

With the new Recipe Management for the AccuCheck inspection system, set-up times can be reduced and input errors avoided in folding carton production.
With the new Recipe Management for the AccuCheck inspection system, set-up times can be reduced and input errors avoided in folding carton production. (Image: Bobst)

In general, these dashboards open up a wide range of options for production managers to influence processes remotely. They can monitor production orders and quickly identify deviations. Bobst Connect thus enables fast communication between production management and machine operators and process optimisations during ongoing production. In addition, the production performance dashboards enable simple shift planning or the transfer of data from a higher-level planning system. Bauer:

„Our customers can flexibly adjust the planning per machine with just a few clicks. We get feedback from them that shift management has never been so easy for them.“

All these options are available in the dashboards at the click of a mouse, users do not have to call up any functions. Bobst Connect therefore brings significant relief to plant and production managers thanks to greater convenience and efficiency in monitoring, analysing and fine-tuning production in a way that was not previously common in packaging manufacturing. In addition, they can standardise their processes with the tools of the platform.

Further set-up process automation

„Since mid-2022, the Bobst Connect community has been growing with every machine that our company delivers. In parallel, the attractiveness of our data and remote service platform is continuously increasing with the gradual development of new functions for digitalisation and the automation of our customers‘ processes that it makes possible.“

Manfred Bauer 

An important building block here is the integration of Bobst Connect with customers‘ ERP, MES and MIS systems, as well as with their artwork management and prepress solutions. The company enables its customers to achieve this integration via an easy-to-use API interface (Application Programming Interface). Job data can then flow automatically into the presses and their quality control systems.

Bobst recently took the next step here with the presentation of pioneering innovations for Job Recipe Management, i.e. for the automatic transfer of job data to its new machines. With Recipe Management for the AccuCheck inspection system, recipes can be prepared and the system set remotely based on the files of the print templates. This means that data no longer has to be entered manually. In folding carton production, for example, this reduces set-up times and avoids input errors.

The recipes for AccuCheck can be saved and their parameters called up from anywhere at any time. This solution thus lays the foundation for closed control loops. In these, the quality assurance systems automatically report the error messages back to Bobst Connect. The settings of the machines are adjusted based on this information during ongoing production.

The Italian packaging manufacturer Cartotecnica Prealpi srl is already using this function successfully. It has reduced its set-up times and improved its quality control at the same time.

The tool management solution with TooLink integrates the die-cutting process with tool production and allows tool management in Bobst Connect.
The tool management solution with TooLink integrates the die-cutting process with tool production and allows tool management in Bobst Connect. (Image: Bobst)

Punching tool management at a new level

Another Bobst innovation for job recipe management that is unique in the market is the tool management solution with TooLink. It integrates the die-cutting process with tool production and allows tool management in Bobst Connect, demonstrating how digitalised value chains are created across companies as part of Bobst’s vision.

For example, customers can now have their punching tools equipped with TooLink data chips by their tool manufacturers, on which the job recipes including all machine parameters are stored. This information is later read out in the punches so that the machines can adjust themselves automatically. At the same time, production data is stored in Bobst Connect over the entire service life of the punching tools. Thus TooLink allows tracking and evaluation of the tools‘ performance as well as maintenance work and orders.

TooLink is currently being tested in practice at Beta customers in close cooperation with Bobst-certified die-cutting tool manufacturers (High-Performance Tooling) and is showing excellent results: Beta customers report significantly reduced set-up times and the highest quality of the packaging they produce.

The other focal points of the Bobst Connect roadmap envisage the development of innovative solutions for monitoring sustainability and managing maintenance activities and quality control.

http://www.bobst.com

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