Truetzschler’s approach to Industry 4.0

Truetzschler Line Commander connects complete Blow room line and cards together, which itself is basis of IoT concept long before Industry 4.0 conceptualised.

Truetzschler is a Germany-based family-owned business group active in the field of Spinning Preparation, Card Clothing and Non-woven technology. As experts in their fields, each company offers the product, which offers technological lead of the respective sector. As an international company in the competitive global arena, products are constantly upgrades with latest technological developments, new materials and newer process.

The term Industry 4.0 originates from a German government’s project as high-tech strategy to promote the computerisation of manufacturing process. Thus Truetzschler’s Industry 4.0 focus started long back. For ex. Truetzschler Line Commander connects complete Blow room line and cards together, which itself is basis of IoT concept long before Industry 4.0 conceptualised. For a company or products to be considered Industry 4.0, it must include following attributes:

• Monitoring: Most relevant mill parameters in one report. Quality, production and machine performance analysis in real time. Comparisons and trends between machines concerning articles, lots, trends etc. Machine downtime analysis.
• Control: Application of automatic or manual limits and alerts when limits are exceeded. Quality and production control per machine, group and article Internal benchmarking
• Optimisation: Data correlation over process steps. Root cause analysis and recommendations for improvement of machine settings. Analysis and optimisation of mill performance. Predictive maintenance. External benchmarking. Cost and claim reduction.
• Autonomy: Smart algorithms monitor the correlation between machine and sensors parameters. Automatic adjustment of machine settings based on root cause analysis. Self-coordination of operation with other products and systems

To begin with this, Truetzschler developed “T-DATA” monitoring system for spinning preparation as a step towards achieving “Industry 4.0” standards. T-DATA records and stores the data of the individual machines. These data are presented in form of tables and graphics. The so-called dashboard, a compilation of essential data, can be freely configured by the user according to his requirements. To collect these data, Truetzschler developed separate sensors in the machines. Some of the examples are:

• TC-WCT: Wastecontrol TC-WCT check and helps in optimising waste quality in the blow room.
• • T SCAN TS-T5: The blow room houses highly sensible foreign part separation systems. The parts are detected by means of 4D cameras. T-DATA shows the medium and long-term statistic of the part types. These data support quality managements in the assessment of the cotton sources with regard to foreign part contamination.
• • TC-EMG: Online measurement of power consumption through ammeter TC-EMG which monitors power consumption of individual machines such as cards, draw frames and combers.
• • T-CON system optimises the cards. This also allows customer to perform targeted maintenance or optimisation.
• • TC-NCT: The nep sensor TC-NCT permanently counts neps, trash parts and seed coat fragments. These data are evaluated by T-DATA. Here too, the trend analyses supply important information for clothing maintenance.

What is special about T-DATA is that the data can be checked from mobile devices, Smartphone or tablet computers and can be accessed wherever there is internet access. This helps in monitoring production data and helps in analysing the production processes online.

Thus at this stage, Truetzschler is already achieving a data quality with High-end sensors, specially manufactured in-house only for Truetzschler machines. No other competitor is having such sensor supported machines in their product line as being offered only by Truetzschler. With this we already achieved basic attributes of Industry 4.0 standards and further development on advance aspects will continue.