Simulating and improving food packaging

The problem currently faced by TreValli is the issue related to an unforeseen stop on the production lines, for instance due to a sudden breakdown of one conveyor or to a machine along the lines that goes out of service. In such case, for some dairy products, there is a 5 minute timeframe to solve the problem and restart the line. In case they are unable to solve the issue in time, the whole line has to be stopped and in the worst case everything that is currently inside the filling machine has to be disposed. To ease the possibility of covering the majority of the possible error cases the team has decided to execute a simulation for each error case simultaneously. The main goal of the experiment is to help the end user to identify potentials to extend the 5 minute timeframe as much as possible to avoid wasting the material. To achieve that goal the realtime simulation software industrialPhysics is utilized to simulate the error cases simultaneously and independently of each other.

From the technical point of view the used simulation software is extended in a way to be used as a service, which can be used for future projects without the need to buy expensive hardware. Furthermore for the vendor of the production line there is the potential to find new ways to optimize the throughput of their line in case a problem occurs.