Technological Educational Institute of Piraeus

MSc ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL AND MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

Module: Mechatronics

Assignment: A Mechatronic Improvement Case Study

Module Leader: Dr Chamilothoris

Students Name:

Georgios G. ROKOS

Students Signature:___________________________

Date: August 2012

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Table of Contents

Preface ........................................................................................................................... 2 Section I: Problem Statement......................................................................................... 3 Section II: Current State and Functional Description ...................................................... 5 Section III. Rejection Procedure Automation ................................................................ 8 3.1 The Automation Systems Logic ........................................................................ 8 3.2 Parts Description ............................................................................................. 11 Section IV. Remarks ..................................................................................................... 20

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Preface
This paper has its origins in the Mechatronics Module of the MSc in Advanced Industrial and Management Systems, undertaken at the Technological Educational Institute of Piraeus, in cooperation with the Kingston University, under the aegis of Dr. Chamilothoris. The study renders around the presentation of an improvement to an existing industrial application. Namely, a suggestion for the automation of the rejection procedure of misfiled packages in a packaging system of a nuts factory is put forward. After passing through the machine that separates the shell from the eatable part of nuts, the product heads to the filling machine where it is placed in boxes. Nonetheless, for several reasons, some boxes are leaving this area misfiled. In order to reduce the chances of recalls, a number of workers shoulder the process of rejection of the faulty products. In the following sections, an attempt is made to create an automation solution and reduce the need for employees that could be used in other more productive tasks, generating higher profit. A fictitious case study is illustrated upon a possibly present technology and an amelioration proposal is deployed. Finally, there are references to other possible solutions for further system improvement. Hopefully, this paper will constitute a pleasant experience for its readers.

Georgios Rokos

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Section I: Problem Statement

The problem confronted in this case lies behind the -hypothesized- fact that workers are involved in the rejection procedure of a packaging system, increasing the overall operational cost of the factory. Costs increase not only due to extra salaries the company needs to pay for the additional labor hours, but also due to the fact that the workers are doing the same work for long periods of time and this makes them prone to error (resulting from repetition). As a result, the probability of product recalls increases and the companys brand name is at stake. In addition, the particular workers are engrossed to a boring, according to them, procedure that does not yield any profit for the factory. Subsequently, they are not happy with their job and the company is steered to hire new, inexperienced staff regularly as a lot of workers resign or ask to be transferred to other departments. From another point of view, the workers that are constrained to the rejection procedure could be occupied with far more profitable and productive tasks than eye-controlling. The system proposed in the coming sections puts an end to these problems. The errors attributed to human factor will vanish as the decision for the rejection of the boxes or not shall be taken by the system itself. This means, in turn, that the departments performance will most likely increase, since fewer errors are expected to occur under automotive control. The proposed system shall be able to work faster, free of restrictions on speed imposed by human nature, which means that the industrial unit will turn more productive. Moreover, the existing staff will be used for other, profitable tasks in other departments. The transferred staff will be more productive, since they will

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have to deal with something new and more interesting than the job they were doing in the past, increasing their working satisfaction. Furthermore, the fact that the rate of employment-related expenses is expected to fall provides the company with the ability to train staff more, adding extra qualification on top of the experience gained with the pass of time. A collateral benefit could lie within the improvement of the companys brand name in the market, since the products that will reach customers will be less likely to be returned as defective. Finally, since workers will no more find themselves near the conveyor belt and the machines, the probability of an accident decreases. Accidents are very common in places where heavy equipment operates. All the arguments mentioned above lead to the conclusion that the impact of interfering in the present system will be positive, generating more profit to the company both directly and indirectly.

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Section II: Current state and functional description

The factorys owning company collaborates with a large number of independent producers suppliers of the products, so there is an almost constant feeding of the production. The trucks with the raw materials usually arrive to the factory early in the morning or late in the evening and empty the content of the truck beds in large silos, almost 3.5 meters high. From this point, fruits are forwarded inside the factory for the necessary processing. If no problems (related to the supply) occur, the silos never remain empty.

Figure 1. Silos, similar to those that the factory uses for storage

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The company uses conveyor belts in order to transfer the products from one processing department to another. A large, incline conveyor belt transfers the trucks load to the silo and a smaller belt, similar to the one in the following Figure is dedicated to the transfer of the raw materials inside the plant.

Figure 2. Incline conveyor belt

Raw materials pass through a machine that breaks the shells and splits the eatable part from the needless part of the nuts. Thereafter, with the aid of a flat conveyor belt, the eatable parts are directed to the washing machine, where they are cleaned with water and they end up to the dryer where moisture is eliminated with the use of hot air.

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Then, they head to the filling machine, where they are packed into boxes and led to the machine that places the lids. Sometimes, the filling machine gaps during operation. As a result of this probable malfunction, some of the containers may be redirected to the next level misfiled. In addition, there will be occasions where boxes will be misaligned on the belt, a fact that also contributes to the same problem. For all these reasons, two or more workers are required. Their main responsibility is checking whether the filled boxes have the proper weight and, if not, rejecting them. The belt that is employed in this part of the process is narrower, with top cover made of PVC and smooth surface minibelt. Its design and its rough surface enable it to operate at high speeds, although it actually operates at a very low speed in order to provide the workers with the necessary time to testing and accept or reject the samples. For a faster belt operation more workers would be required, which might be regarded unprofitable by the managers of the factory.

Figure 3. The current state

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Section III. Rejection Procedure Automation

3.1 The Automation Systems Logic In order to avoid human interference in the process, an automated system for the rejection of the half-filled containers is interpolated. The system consists of an electronic scale with a conveyor belt on it, three sensors, a timer, two motors, a metal "wall" and a metal plate. The following scheme (Figure 4) illustrates the proposed systems configuration, where: S1, S2 are the sensors, T is the timer circuit, M1 is the motor that moves the wall M2 the motor that moves the plate Sc the scale.

There is also a third sensor, labeled S3, which is not depicted in this scheme for simplicity reasons. The third sensors input is connected over the scales belt and checks if the plate has moved. Its output is connected to the switch that activates the M1 motor and moves down the metal wall to the off input of the scale. The outputs of the other two sensors are not connected directly to the motor and the scale. However, a logical OR gate is positioned between them so as to avoid logical conflicts in case the two outputs do not carry concurrently the same bit.

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Figure 4. Systems configuration

Sensors S1 and S2 are weight activated and their input signals are coming from inside the belts rollers. When the container reaches the scale, it sets the sensor S1 On. Subsequently, the sensors output triggers a timer and immediately turns on the motor M1. The motor erects the metal wall so as to isolate the weight system. This way, the scale will undoubtedly weight only one container each time. In 500 msec the timers output is set and triggers the scales circuit On input. When the On bit is set, the scale can measure the weight of the container. During these 500 msec the container is heading close to the middle of the scale and the measurement is considered sufficiently accurate. Since the weight cant be precisely equal to the weight that is written on the products label, the weight is programmed to check if the weight is lower than 90% of the nominal weight and greater than 110% of the nominal

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weight (tolerance setting). If so, the output bit of the scales is set, M 2 motor is activated and the plate moves. The role of the plate in the system consists of rejecting all miss-filled containers. Its movement pushes the box and forces it to drop in a box underneath the system. Then, sensor S3 comprehends that the plate has moved, signals motor M1 to move the wall back to its initial position and deactivates the scale. If the containers weight is inside the acceptable weight limits, then the system does not react and the container passes through to the next conveyor belt. There, it sets the input bit of the sensor S 2. In turn, the sensor activates motor M1 and sets the scale off, mandating the system to return to its initial state.

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3.2 Parts Description

A) Scale The scales circuit consists of a load cell, two comparators, a logical OR gate, two varied ohmic resistors and a 2 DC voltage sources. The circuits scheme is demonstrated below.

V1 Upper Limit

Load cell

C1 Vout OR

C2 Lower Limit V2

Figure 5. Scales Scheme

A load cell is a transducer which converts force into a measurable electrical output. The optimal setting would arise if a pneumatic load cell was installed, as the latter are recommended for applications in food industry because of their high accuracy, wide weight range and lack of fluids. Taking into account the output voltage of the cell, one may adjust the potentiometers so as to produce a voltage corresponding to the maximum and minimum weight.

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The circuits labeled C1 and C2 are the comparators of the higher and the lower limit of the voltage (that correspond to the higher and lower limits of the weight). Whenever the cells output is out of the desired limits the outputs of the comparators change to logical High and so is the output of the OR gate.

B) Conveyor belt Upon the scale, a small conveyor belt is placed, firmly screwed. A good choice would be a mini-belt with PVC top cover and slick surface. This design enables high speeds while enabling the easy disposal of defective containers using the plate, with insignificant probability of reversing and leaving nuts on the scale.

Figure 6. Mini conveyor belt

A cheaper rolling conveyor could also be used instead of the PVC belt. In that case, all the rolls would have to be connected because thats the only way of transferring the container all way through the scale. Despite its low cost, it is

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not recommended since it is much heavier than the belt, reducing the scales weight range.

C) Switches and motor drivers The output voltages and currents of the electronic devices are very low and may not be used for triggering devices like motors. To be able to take advantage of the circuits, the current or voltage requirements (by the other connected circuits) need to be designed. Electronic switches, which will be triggered by the outputs of the circuit, need to be used and the input levels need to be connected with power circuits that would provide the proper currents and voltages. The role of the switch can be determined by a transistor, preferably a MOSFET. The N-channel, Enhancement-mode MOSFET operates using a positive input voltage and has an extremely high input resistance (almost infinite) making it possible to interface with nearly any logic gate or driver capable of producing a positive output. The P-channel, Enhancement-mode MOSFET operates similarly, using a negative input voltage. Due to this very high input (Gate) resistance, one can parallelize together many different MOSFETs, until the required current handling limit is attained. Meanwhile, connecting together various MOSFETs may enable switching high currents or high voltage loads. This would turn the system expensive and impractical in both components and circuit board space. To overcome such a problem Power Field Effect Transistors or Power FET's may be employed. The operation of the enhancement-mode MOSFET can best be described using its I-V characteristics curves depicted in the following Figure. When the input voltage (VIN) in the gate of the transistor is zero, MOSFET conducts virtually no current and the output voltage (VOUT) is equal to the supply voltage VDD. Thence, MOSFET is "fully-OFF" and in its "cut-off" region.

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Figure 7. MOSFETs I-V characteristics curves

In the following circuit, two MOSFETs are configured to produce a bidirectional switch from a dual supply with the motor connected between the common drain connection and ground reference. When the input is LOW the P-channel MOSFET is switched-ON as its gate-source junction is negatively biased, so the motor rotates in one direction. Only the positive +V DD supply rail is used to drive the motor.

When the input is HIGH, the P-channel device switches-OFF and the Nchannel device switches-ON, as its gate-source junction is positively biased. The motor now rotates in the opposite direction because the motors terminal voltage has been reversed as it is now supplied by the negative -VDD supply rail. Then the P-channel MOSFET is used to switch the positive supply to the motor for forward direction (high-side switching), while the N-channel MOSFET is used to switch the negative supply to the motor for reverse direction (low-side switching). This means that if a circuit which inputs the

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outputs of sensors S1 and S2 is created, giving the proper output, one can force the motor to rotate in either direction. The logical expression of this output is and may be extracted directly from the truth table of the circuit, as shown below. The corresponding circuit is shown in Figure 9.

S1 0 0 1 1

S2 0 1 0 1

Out irrelevant 0 1 irrelevant

Table 1. The truth table of the motor controllers input circuit

Both the P-channel and the N-channel devices can be driven by a single gate drive IC as indicated. However, to avoid cross-conduction with both MOSFETs conducting at the same time across the two polarities of the dual supply, fast switching devices are required to provide some time difference between the turning "OFF" and the other turning "ON". One way to overcome this problem is to drive both MOSFETs gates separately. This would produce a third option, "STOP", to the motor when both MOSFETs are "OFF".

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Figure 8. Motor controller

S1 S2 Out

Figure 9. The input circuit of the motor controller

D) Motors As aforementioned, the under study system requires two motors; one for raising and lowering the metal isolation wall and one for moving the metal plate when needed. Since the load is light in both cases, two low cost DC motors would be sufficient for the needs of the project.

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Figure 10. A 0.5 Hp DC motor

E) Sensors The sensors used in the proposed system are simple push-button switches connected properly to the system so that they can be activated at the right moment. Switches S1 and S2 are positioned on the axis of the cylinder that moves the conveyor belt. When the container passes over the roll, the weight pushes the cylinder down and the switch is pressed. Closing the switch forces the feeding voltage, triggering the next part of the system. The third sensor is placed no far from the metallic plate, so that the latter may press it when reaching the end of the rejection path. The logic is similar to the other two sensors logic. When the plate reaches the end of the path, it presses the button and a voltage is triggering the motor and the Off input of the scale.

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Roller Wire Switch

Figure 11. Roller sensor system (side view)

Roller

Wire Switch

Figure 12. Roller sensor system (top view)

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Plate

Switch Wire

Figure 13. Plates sensor system (top view)

F) Timer Timers are electrical circuits that, when triggered, create a pulse in their output after a short or long delay. Timers can be programmed, so as to control the time that will pass prior to the creation of the pulse. They can be found in the market in IC form and the user only needs to set the delay time and add the chip to the circuit.

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Section IV. Remarks

With the use of the proposed system, no human would interfere in the rejection process. Of course, one should not expect that there will be no problems during the systems operation, but they will be reasonably few. One of them has to do with the use of the isolation wall. If two containers are too close to each other, there is a possibility that the wall will knock down the one that follows. That means, that even if it was properly filled, it will never reach the scale, or it will arrive there reversed. Probably, it will not have the proper weight and the system will reject it. If not, that would be a problem for the next processing level. This problem is easily solved with the proper control of the belt feeding with empty containers. So, if that malfunction occurs, it will probably mean that there is a problem with the previous processing level. A more elegant, yet more expensive approach would be the use of a PLC for controlling the whole system. All the inputs and outputs of the system would be used as an output or input of the PLC and there would not be any need for secondary circuits like timers and gates, or even some of the switches. Also, the use of a PLC would add more flexibility to the system. Finally, another approach of the problems solution would be based upon the use of a similar scale in the spot under the feeder, which would weigh the product during the filing procedure and would stop the conveyor belt until the container is filled. As a result, the need for the isolation wall would be eliminated and the second scale would only be responsible for rejecting the overweight products. Through this approach, the number of rejected products would likely decrease, since there would not exist any chance of less-filled containers.

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