PROcheck with RFID from Foxel

Foxel Srl from Casale Monferrato, Italy, a company which boasts many years of experience in industrial automation on rotogravure, flexo and web offset installations, has developed and produced a system called Foxel PROcheck, which registers all waste produced during printing, laminating and slitting processes in a printing plant.

PROcheck was exhibited and received with great success at the Converflex Europe 2006 show in Milan in May. A PROcheck control console installed on the rewinder of each production machine codifies all the waste generated during material printing. Coding is achieved using RFID technology with the application of tags to the reels printed during production. The system can be interfaced with quality inspection systems often already present on presses, and allows the acquisition of all data relative to waste by codifying defects such as ghosting, tonal variation, folds, marks and lines, as well as waste due to ‘out of register’.

PROcheck can also integrate with systems which analyze solvent concentration so as to differentiate between reels which have been produced within or outside allowed parameters so producers, and customers too, can receive reliable information to show that a problem is not relative an entire production lot but only to a particular reel or certain reels.

RFID tags capture and convey all data on the status of each reel produced. This is then read by the other machines which are involved in completing the working cycle of the printed materials. The RFID tags are fixed to the outside of reels and can be used again and again on new reels.

PROcheck terminals are installed on the unwinder of each slitter-rewinder or inspection machine and decode all data stored in the TAG. This terminal is interfaced with the machine’s drive controls and will stop the slitter as it gets to the start of waste material, so improving performance of the slitter department.

PROcheck system can track all products in the printing cycle, and the ‘waste database’ can be broken-down into production run – line – shift – date, providing data on the quantity of waste produced both of semi-finished and finished products and then be used for evaluating the efficiency of each single production machine.

‘PROcheck-RFID enables machine operators to produce real reductions in waste, and gives producers real increases in plant efficiency with fast payback on investments,’ the company said in a statement.