The plastics industry is currently facing two major challenges: the circular economy and digitalisation. Erema is convinced that digitalisation in plastics recycling is an important pacemaker on the way to implementing a circular economy. The plastics recycling machine manufacturer is promoting this drive in the industry and at K 2019 will be presenting smart technologies and its new BluPort customer platform, where existing and new digital assistance systems will be brought together in future.
The demands on recycled pellets are increasing, while at the same time more contaminated input streams and new material compositions have to be integrated into the recycling process. "Digitalisation opens up new opportunities for planning, controlling and organising these processes. Its potential must be harnessed to provide the required quantities of high quality, stable recycled pellets," says Manfred Hackl, CEO of the Erema Group, explaining why Erema is promoting digitalisation in plastics recycling so strongly.
BluPort - the new customer platform for digital assistance systems
Smart technologies have been part of Erema's product range for some years. These include the Smart Start Package for a high degree of automation, the QualityOn packages for continuous measurement of quality data such as colour, MVR and composition of input material during processing, and Smart Factory re360, a Manufacturing Execution System that collates production and machine data from all the customer's machines. Erema customers can now access more assistance systems and information tools using the new BluPort customer platform, which will be launched at K-2019. "Our BluPort online platform puts together in one place a collection of intuitive and user-friendly service and data processing apps that support our customers in quality control and, as a result, increase machine performance. With a focus on data security and customer benefits, we will continuously supplement and expand the BluPort range in the future," says Michael Heitzinger, Managing Director of Erema Engineering Recycling Maschinen und Anlagen Ges.m.b.H.. The basic version is free to all customers. The full version with all the latest updates is available when customers purchase a Smart Service Package.
All Erema machines delivered from K-2019 onwards are equipped with the technology to use the Smart Service Package. A special offer to mark the launch of the BluPort customer platform includes the My Recycling Plant dashboard with the most important key performance indicators and comparison values of the customer's own recycling systems, an investment calculator as a decision-making tool for investments, as well as a pool of maintenance videos customised to each user and their machines with step-by-step field-proven instructions. "With these maintenance videos, which are unique in this industry, we enable our customers' employees to carry out their work quickly and correctly. This is an important contribution towards achieving the highest possible system availability," Michael Heitzinger is convinced. The proven Spare Parts Online shop, which has also been integrated into the new customer platform, also serves the same purpose. Here, Erema customers will not only find spare parts that can be ordered around the clock for their machines, but also their own order history, drawings, circuit diagrams, documentation, instruction manuals and photos. Convenient search functions and an intuitive user interface simplify and speed up the procurement process.
"Digital networking is an important step on the way to integrating recycling know-how into the plastics value chain. With our smart technologies and the new BluPort customer platform, we are creating the conditions for developing new solutions together with our customers for cost-effective and environmentally sound optimisations in the process chain," says Manfred Hackl.
