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Batch plant Zippe
Zippe’s dosing belt conveyor.�
Ongoing developments at Zippe during Covid-19
Despite the ongoing pandemic, Zippe Industrieanlagen has remained focused on delivering batch plant developments for its customers.
For more than 100 years the core business of Zippe Industrieanlagen has been the design and construction of high-performance batch and cullet plants.
During the pandemic, Zippe remained true to its future-orientation by initiating several promising innovations and technological developments.
The past 12 months have been challenging in many ways. The global pandemic held the world in a state of emergency, it made work difficult and endangered the health of many people. Regardless of the difficulties that had to be overcome, it was also a time of innovation at Zippe where significant technological advances were made.
Here are some of Zippe’s latest innovations:
Dosing Belt Conveyor BWS (Belt Weighing Scale)
Dosing belt conveyors play an increasingly important part in batch and especially cullet systems and have several advantages in comparison to belt scales.
Reason enough for Zippe to develop an own, in-house model that exceeds the performances of the products available on the market.
During 2020, the performance of the system was further improved. The Zippe dosing belt conveyor was not only redesigned, but its weighing accuracy further enhanced, making it more precise than ever.
Weighing accuracies up to +/- 0.5% are possible and could be standard now by using the ZIPPE evaluation electronics and redesigned mechanical belt conveyor components.
Since 2016 more than 100 Zippe weighbelt feeders have been sold and are in use worldwide, and since 2020 the redesigned dosing belt conveyors with upgraded functionality are available.
ZMART Scraper Control (Intelligent Mode)
Zippe strives to ensure that its machines have the latest state of the art technology and constantly improve our products.
To reduce wear and to minimise the portion of fine material in scraping conveyors are two areas that are considered as particularly important by
� The operating panel of the Zmart Scraper Control. � Remote assistance via video call.
� Remote assistance has become the norm with the Covid-19 pandemic affecting travel.
our customers.
Therefore, Zippe developed the innovative ZMART Scraper Control System.
Depending on the gob weight and quantity of gobs or hot bottles, this advanced control system module decides whether and at which speed the scraping conveyor operates.
Furthermore, the required operating time will be minimised and calculated individually. The production data necessary is affected automatically by standardised interfaces between the ISmachines and the scraping conveyor control system.
If required, these parameters can be entered and adapted manually via touch panel and thus allow a continuous and individual optimisation of the process.
Thus, high operational flexibility is achieved, the operation time is reduced to a minimum and, above all, this cost-saving alternative is permanently available.
The positive effects of the optimised scraper control system at a glance: � Reduced wear and therefore longer lifetime of the scraping conveyor � Minimisation of the fine cullet portion � Less maintenance works � Considerably lower energy consumption � Cost savings and carbon dioxide reduction
Meanwhile, the ZMART Scraper Control System has been successfully commissioned at our customer O-I in Bernsdorf, Germany and operates to its fullest satisfaction.
Remote Services
Due to the situation regarding Covid-19 and the resulting travel restrictions over the past months, the installation, commissioning, and service of the different machine and plant parts had to be reconsidered.
In this regard Zippe relies on remote support for customers with the help of Augmented Reality (AR), remote services, and teleservices.
In times when unrestricted traveling is not possible, Zippe is able to support its customers from a distance.
It is essential for the customer’s technician and the Zippe service specialist to ‘speak the same language’.
Previously, numerous e-mails including photo documentation were exchanged. It is now possible to support customers in a significantly more efficient and speedy fashion thanks to modern technology of Augmented Reality (AR).
Making Silos “Zmart” with the ZMART Inventory System
Traditionally silos are connected to the internal control system and show filling levels, etc. We took the technology one step further by enabling improved levels of visualisation and options for Vendor Managed Inventory applications (VIM).
The ZMART Inventory System is a webbased software for data acquisition and visualisation of level data in raw material silos.
This service is suitable for level monitoring within a company and for Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) applications.
Advantages for the supplier: � Quick access to current and historic customer consumption data � Cost-effective production and inventory planning in own company � Higher client retention levels � Cost savings through optimised logistics � Improved relationships and long-
� Silo inventory management.
term customer loyalty
Advantages for the customer: � Security of supply: no more “out of stock” situations and costly rush orders � Avoidance of production stoppages � Cost savings through reduced administrative work � Higher effi ciency and confi dence in stock levels � Concentration on core business
Further advancements in preheating technologies
Preheating technologies have also been further developed and improved. As the reduction of CO2 is becoming a major motivation for many of our customers, batch preheating is increasingly in demand, especially in the last 18 months. One of the challenges is that many batch preheaters can increase the dust content of the fl ue gas as the batch is in contact with the exhaust gases for drying and heating purposes.
This can create issues in the fi ltering equipment if it is not laid-out for the increased dust quantity. The objective of the latest technological development is to avoid this issue by minimising this carry-over.
In 2021 an advanced mechanism has been developed by Zippe engineers, theoretical models have been applied, and tests are running.
The result Zippe is targeting is a system that maintains the same high effi ciency of preheating but ensure a highly reduced dust carry-over.
Zippe aims to achieve this by complex modelling, testing, and improving the air and pressure fl ow within the system.
During the pandemic, two orders were placed for large scale preheaters for European container glass producers which are in the realisation phase. �
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