Slim recepteren: traceerbaar en met operatorbegeleiding

Standaards, zoals ISO/TS16949, schrijven volledige traceerbaarheid van relevante processtappen voor. Het voldoen aan deze standaards bij doseer- en receptuurtoepassingen kan een hele klus zijn. Het nieuwe FormWeigh.Net® receptuursysteem begeleidt de operator door de processtappen en documenteert alle stappen voor naadloze tracking & tracing.

Manually structured formulation processes have been considered sufficient in non-regulated industries for many years. However there are five important factors changing the priorities in the dispensing and formulation booths:

1. Raw material prices are climbing and not really predictable
2. High competition requires cost consciousness in order to be profitable
3. Disposal of bad batches is getting more difficult and expensive
4. Traceable processes and documentation are important to react fast on product liability issues (e.g. ISO16949)
5. Errors in the product can severely impact your reputation, most probably resulting in decline of sales figures

The new FormWeigh.Net® system for dispensing and formulation is designed to simplify formulation needs. The intuitive guidance through the formulation process, assures stable product quality from batch to batch, while maximizing material utilization, process speed and reducing the amount of manual work involved. The new formulation software boosts an optimized data handling, speeding up your order management drastically and facilitating tracking and tracing.

Formulation system in use
A German composite sinter metal manufacturer produces bearings with layers of self-lubricating material that require either no lubrication or lubrication only during the initial installation. The manufacturer wanted to improve his process by increasing the efficiency of the batching process. Furthermore, the creation of batch protocols for traceability to comply with ISO/TS16949 had to be automated. The entire recipe management process should be performed on a computer. Operators need to be guided through the batching process with instructions on the screen of the weighing terminal in order to avoid bad batches. Each step of the process should be confirmed after completion. The protocol of each batch should include raw material identification, net weight of all components, date, time and identification of operator and all operator confirmations. Additionally, the manufacturer required the extraction of a part of a liquid component at the end of the mixing procedure. This extraction also needs to be documented fully. Finally, the system needed to be able to be connected to an already existing SAP system.

METTLER TOLEDO could fulfill the customer’s needs with the FormWeigh.Net® software.
The customer reduced the amount of waste raw material and increased batch quality. The documentation for tracking and tracing in accordance with ISO/TS16949 is available, as all relevant data is stored in the SQL database. FormWeigh.Net® allows the manufacturer to take control of his workflows as he is always aware of which orders are completed, in progress or waiting for processing. During batching, the operators are now guided through the process by the clearly visible instructions on the weighing terminal.