ICMA San Giorgio
Connectivity and remote control services for ICMA San Giorgio
Introduction
The partnership
Gefran is one of ICMA San Giorgio’s partners in the construction of an extrusion system equipped with corotating twin-screw extruder installed at a large test laboratory near Detroit. Gefran’s added value: connectivity, remoting service, and a complete range of automation components.
The customer
ICMA San Giorgio is part of an industrial group with more than a century of history in Italy and abroad. The company was the first to develop corotating extruders, and is now one of the largest builders of plastic processing machines and systems for compounding and extrusion/compounding for a wide range of applications.
ICMA studies its customers’ requests and creates turnkey machines and systems with cutting-edge technological solutions and installations all over the world.
The process
ICMA recently created a compounding extrusion lab-line unit for a major European company that installed the line at its test laboratory near Detroit. The line was built almost exclusively with Italian and European machines and equipment, and offers American companies in the field, an opportunity to test European technology, acknowledged as the world’s most advanced in this field of application.
The line, consisting of a corotating twin-screw extruder and a gravimetric dosing system, can produce a wide range of compounds for the plastic/rubber sector.
The problem
Due to the line’s complexity, and to make construction simpler and quicker, the builder needed a single partner to supply electronic components.
In addition, installing the line in the United States requires high connectivity to cut distances between service and the line. The aim is to control the line in real time and from miles away.
The solution
In the context of Industry 4.0, Gefran devices are at the vanguard in connectivity and remoting.
For ICMA, Gefran’s division that designs and creates turnkey solutions presented a proposal equipped with teleservice as well. The user can connect remotely from Italy and supervise the line parameters, thereby avoiding on-site procedures.
This solution:
- Reduces transfer costs
- Increases response speed in case of downtime
- Checks and changes line parameters
In addition, the Gefran catalog is complete and highly varied: for 50 years, the company has been a leading designer and manufacturer of electronic devices to control production processes such as extrusion.
The line is controlled by the GCube Modula automation platform, composed of the soft-plc GF Vedo EV operator panel and Gilogic remote I/O rack; temperature is controlled with GFX4 PID remoted modules. Melt is measured with exclusive Impact series fluid-free high-temperature pressure transmitters with PL “c” safety certification.
Therefore, in addition to its sensors, power controllers, inverters, and automation solutions, Gefran offered ICMA the certainty of a reliable partner in the field of plastic transformation: with thousands of installations world-wide, Gefran has solid know-how in this industry.
Working with ICMA, Gefran’s highly experienced engineers studied and created this solution very rapidly.