Making Industry 4.0 Opportunities a Reality - A Prime Focus for Sidel Group at Drinktec

While consumers want more customised products, they also want them fast and at the right price. This has contributed to the rise of Industry 4.0, the adoption of intelligent cyber-physical solutions and increased automation in production plants.  Commenting on the role of Agility 4.0 and its focus at Drinktec, Frederic Sailly, Executive VP for Product Management and Development, Sidel explains: “The Agility 4.0 programme is an award-winning, proven and pragmatic approach to manufacturing that we have developed with a view to achieving three overall benefits: improved understanding, enhanced performance, and product mass customisation together with traceability. The programme provides tangible answers to liquid packaging producers’ needs, ranging from faster changeovers to reduced maintenance, less storage, less waste, higher product quality and faster time to market - all of which increase performance and reduce costs.”  The tools and solutions of Agility 4.0 are grouped around the programme’s five pillars:

Virtual Factory
Smart Factory
Connected Factory
Sustainable Factory
Extended Factory

Elaborating on this last point, Ludovic Tanchou, Vice President of Strategy, Products and Innovation, Gebo Cermex comments: “When it comes to answering customers’ needs in the Industry 4.0 era, the extended factory represents the Sidel Group vision. Instead of using a traditional conveyor to simply take the product from A to B in a linear production process, mobile handling can now be used to move the semi-finished or finished items from any filler, to any labeller to any packing machine. This flexible shop floor layout can even be used alongside dedicated lines with their physical connections. It will, of course, greatly enable the goal of mass customisation rather than mass production.” He summarises by saying: “A result of the group’s strong partnerships with industry-leading players in robotics, automation and smart systems, the Agility 4.0 programme from the Sidel Group is designed to be future-proof, helping producers and brand owners face the fourth industrial revolution. It does so by creating a digital factory that can improve performance - even in a fast changing environment, while reducing non-productive sequences and minimising costs.” Hall A6.330
www.sidel.com