By Ron Shinn
Reifenhäuser rolled out plenty of new products at K 2025, including its Everex flat film line, its Evo Gen3 blown film line and a problem-solving chatbot.
The new equipment has been designed to help processors struggling to find skilled line operators.
The highly automated Everex flat film line is for cast and sheet applications. The system performs many tasks without human intervention. It includes Reifenhäuser’s automatic PAM control of the coextrusion adapter and die-to-width adjustment and automated winder.
A Reifenhäuser spokesman said the Everex line was revamped to make operation easy, safe and reliable for less-qualified operators. Reifenhäuser’s PAM automation option, which stands for precise, autonomous, mechatronic, has been expanded and is now called PAM 2.0. The original version of PAM used electric actuators to control the die and coextrusion adapter automatically during operation. This allowed saved recipes to be easily reproduced.
PAM 2.0 adds automated adjustment to the systems involved in width adjustment. Reifenhäuser estimates this system can save up to 80 minutes compared with manual product changes and is safer for operators.
“With automated width adjustment, we integrated the necessary process knowledge directly into the machine,” said Marcel Perrevort, chief sales officer of the Reifenhäuser Group. “This enables our customers to reliably increase efficiency, quality and reproducibility for maximum overall equipment effectiveness.”
The Evo Gen3 blown film line has a maximum output of 2,315 pounds per hour with a 13.8-inch diameter die, which Perrovert called a “real quantum leap” in performance. The new line is 30 percent faster than its predecessor.
New Ultra Dies, along with a new cooling ring, make the higher output possible. The new dies are available in three-layer and five-layer versions for maximum throughput, a seven-layer version maximized for barrier films and a nine-layer version for the highest film quality and complex products.
The new cooling ring, named the Ultra Cool Gen3, features a unique inner bubble cooling stack. Reifenhäuser said the cooling ring can replace older rings and provide a 20 percent increase in throughput.
The new line uses an Evo Gen3 HMI that includes helpers that guide operators to any setting in a maximum of two clicks.
Evo Gen 3 has a new Auto Flat system that makes film thickness measurable for the first time. A sensor continuously measures the flatness of the film and determines the best setting for the Ultra Flat stretching unit.
There is also a ReStart Assistant that reduces the time for changeovers and cleaning stops. It sets all recipe parameters automatically to bring the system back up to production.
The Reifenhäuser NEXT system, with a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence (AI), is designed to help inexperienced line operators quickly solve complicated tasks. It combines AI technology with Reifenhäuser’s expertise and live production data.
“AI is only as intelligent as the data it has been trained with,” said Jan Karnath, the company’s chief digital officer who’s responsible for the NEXT brand. “Reifenhäuser has decades of experience in plastics extrusion. We have integrated this bundled knowledge into an AI solution that is unique to the market.”
Reifenhäuser NEXT consists of three products: NEXT.AI, the AI chatbot that responds to text questions with immediate answers and suggestions; NEXT.Learning, a combination of on-site training and a digital learning platform that helps users retain staff expertise and make it available to new employees through AI avatars; and NEXT.Data, which automatically aggregates production data and displays it on dashboards designed for the plastics extrusion and packaging industries.
Reifenhäuser said studies show that the use of industrial AI has the potential to improve OEE by up to 15 percent and reduce waste and downtime by up to 20 percent.
“Reifenhäuser NEXT focuses precisely on this area,” the company said in a press release.
Contact:
Reifenhäuser Inc., Maize, Kan., 316-260-2122, www.reifenhauser.com
