Reducing Waste by reducing defects.

AMETEK Surface Vision has helped a major Japanese paper product manufacturer improve the quality of its papermaking, as part of an upgrade to its production facility.

Based in Osaka, Japan, Rengo Co. Ltd provides paper solutions to support the flow of goods in a range of industries, including general packaging. Its Kanazu plant is a corrugated board base paper production facility, which underwent the upgrade in 2017.

Initially, AMETEK Surface Vision’s SmartView system was added to inspect the paper for defects. This was supported by a single-camera Advanced Winder Advisor (AWA) tool, which enables automatic stops at the detected defect location. Designed specifically for paper inspection systems, it allows immediate resynchronization after a web break or sheet splicing.

Due to the enhanced stopping accuracy of the AWA, defects are dealt with much faster, leading to increased production speed and product yield. This led to a further investment in the SmartAdvisor's web inspection system to reduce the number of paper breaks by identifying the cause of the defects.

They installed a SmartAdvisor system with 12 cameras alongside the existing SmartView system. In addition, the SmartSync tool was also applied, which integrates the multi-camera video monitoring power of SmartAdvisor with the flexibility and proven quality of SmartView surface inspection.

This enhanced level of surface inspection provided an immediate identification of the cause after the defect occurred, leading to rapid results and a reduction in the amount of waste paper created by defects. Additionally, paper breaks reduced by 17% year-on-year.

Takefumi Nakanishi, Rengo’s Deputy General Manager commented: “Before we installed SmartSync, it took me a while to find the information I needed. Now we have succeeded in narrowing down the paper break and defect information.

“Our next step will be to install more cameras and require a more accurate system performance, which we are able to do thanks to the modular nature of the AMETEK Surface Vision solution.”

The SmartView and SmartAdvisor systems can be applied to the full spectrum of paper, packaging, and tissue applications, enabling customers to inspect the surfaces of materials to improve quality, reliability, and speed.

• Read the full Rengo case study here.

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