Hydraulics & Pneumatics September 2022

The UK Compressor Rental Specialists With the UK’s largest hire fleet operating from depots in Scotland , London and The West Midlands we have the compressed air solution for your needs. web:genair.co.uk e mail: sales@genair.co.uk Low Emission Diesel: Electric Drive: Oil Free: Desiccant Dryers & Ancilleries Hire Desk Open 24/7 0844 775 0890 Serving Sectors From Petrochemical To Geotechnical for the full picture visit www.twisterflex.com www.hpmag.co.uk HYDRAULICS & PNEUMATICS September 2022 33 At this year’s PPMA exhibition, the Festo stand focused on key applications for the process and packaging sector. These included process valve controls, servo-controlled flow wrapping and a new solution for controlling web tension with dancing rollers. An OEM balancer was introduced to make it easy for designers to integrate all the counter-balance controls they need with their own mechanical structures. A boon for lifting heavy loads typically found at the beginning or end of production lines e.g. sack or box lifting. Connectivity and integration An action-packed production line looked at an assembly task demonstrating connectivity and integration from the mechanics, sensors, actuators and controls linked to edge, or cloud monitoring for machine learning assisted predictive maintenance, energy reduction or quality monitoring. Energy costs are currently a major issue for all UK manufacturers. Festo showed some examples for monitoring and controlling compressed air usage to reduce energy consumption. Recent examples have shown air consumption can be reduced by over 40% using the VTEM motion terminal. Here, the guess work and variability of applications can be eliminated and only the air required to make the cylinder movement within the given time and with the current load is expended. New products can be white elephants if the workforce isn’t adequately prepared to embrace and maximise the technology. The new Festo LX online learning platform offers users access to an extensive library of training resources. It is a cost-effective subscription-based tool to provide a hybrid blend of online and hands-on upskilling. Festo Didactic is actively engaged in helping customers take their employees through the journey of embracing Lean methodologies, streamlining and stabilising their processes before they uplift them to the next level of digitalisation technology. www.festo.co.uk Festo focuses on applications for the process and packaging sector at PPMA