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CASE STUDY: PC-BASED CONTROL, AI James Figy, Beckhoff Automation
PC-based control boosts sterile sampling bag production Labplas redesigns custom production machines with EtherCAT, robotics and AI for quality control, ensuring ROI of less than one year on all upgrades, for 15 to 35% machine productivity increases. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps.
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ttention to quality standards and flexibility in production are crucial for the aseptic sampling industry. After all, the sampling bags must carry sampling sponges, food items, pharmaceuticals or organic matter of all sizes for testing in labs and protect against contamination to ensure consumer safety. Labplas designs, builds and implements leadingedge technologies at its Montreal-area production facility. A tailor-made machine line creates custom products ranging from 3- to 33-in.-wide bags in various material types with few changeovers, rather than only standard sizes of sampling bags and kits. “We continuously improve our systems through automation to achieve even higher throughput for a larger number of products while maintaining our agility,” said Benoit Brouillette, general manager for Labplas.
Based in Sainte-Julie, Quebec, the company serves customers in the food, agriculture, environmental, veterinary and pharmaceuticals industries, among others, through a network of independent distributors in roughly 55 countries. Products include sterile sampling bags, testing wand kits, bags for the food industry and environmentallyfriendly biodegradable bags. The company added a microbiology lab in recent years for research and development and to ensure product quality and conformance for reliable sampling, though its main technological advances have been in automation and controls. The MM machine line series has gone through many iterations between the first machine commissioned two decades ago and the company’s 24 production lines today. During a recent redesign of several MM lines, the engineering department implemented additional robotics and GigE cameras to improve throughput and repeatability, and they are in the process of deploying artificial intelligence (AI) for greater quality control, according to Christian Fontaine, Labplas R&D department manager. The key for Labplas in any upgrade is carefully considering the control platform down to the component level. “To remain versatile enough to produce custom products, the MM lines have to sustain a high level of complexity. If you can’t trust every part of your machine, it’s impossible to trust the end results,” Fontaine said.
Sampling reliable, open technologies
The MM machine lines at Labplas rely on many automation and controls solutions from Beckhoff. Images courtesy: Beckhoff
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February 2021
control engineering
The engineering team prioritized system openness, which is necessary to increase data acquisition and to integrate third-party components and software in real-time. For example, Labplas wanted to upgrade its assembly technology to form sampling bags and insert the sampling accessories, such as sponges, cloths, spoons or scissors with a robot arm. Previously, operators manually inserted sponges and placed kits in the finished open-top www.controleng.com
