ES2349846T3 - MANUFACTURING SYSTEM FOR THE PRODUCTION OF FOLDING BOXES AND PROCEDURE FOR THE FEEDING OF DEVELOPMENTS WITHOUT MACULATURE TO A MACHINE FOLDING OF FOLDING BOXES. - Google Patents

Abstract

The system (100) has an image data storage unit (13) in which image data with reference values and tolerance ranges are stored. A printing machine (2) has an evaluation device (11) with a camera system to control a printed image and a goods usage counter (14). The counter is coupled with a controller of the machine, where the controller stops the machine when a predefined number of goods usage is reached. The evaluation device and an evaluation module (12) are connected with the storage unit such that the data of the storage unit is accessed and worked with consistent evaluation logic. An independent claim is also included for a method for supplying a wastepaper-free good to folding and bonding stations of a folded box bonding machine, by a production system.

Description

The invention relates to a manufacturing system for the production of folding boxes according to the preamble of claim 1, and a method for feeding developments to the folding and gluing stations of a folding box gluing machine, according to the preamble of claim 9.

According to the current state of the art, materials for packaging, paper, cardboard, cardboard, corrugated cardboard and the like are manufactured, for example, for packaging for cosmetics, cigarettes, pharmacy, food, in three phases. In a first phase, sheets of paper, cardboard and the like are printed on polychrome sheet printers. A sheet is usually printed here with several developments, each of which will later form a collapsible box, and this is why we talk about printing developments. In a second phase, the sheets are punched in a flat bed die cutter. Here the developments are individualized and grooved lines are provided for the subsequent folds. In a third phase, the developments are folded and pasted in a folding box gluing machine, to form folding boxes. Between the different manufacturing phases, intermediate products are usually stacked on pallets, and stored interimly.

As for the quality of folding boxes, there are high demands. Especially the folding boxes that are used in the field of pharmacy, have to correspond exactly to the specifications. In other words, they must not contain any defects, also called maculature. However, during the production of folding boxes, different types of maculature can be generated: Adjustment maculature that is generated when adjusting the printer and the die cutter, disconnection maculature that is generated when disconnecting and moving down the machines, bubbles, is that is, defective points in the printed image, which are generated by deposits on the rubber blanket, damages that are generated by continuous operation and the use of continuous sheet feeders, etc. In the case of adjustment maculature and disconnection in the printer, these are usually colorimetric defects that affect the entire sheet. In the case of bubbles and damage due to continuous operation in the printer, these are usually geometric defects, which affect individual developments of a sheet. Defective developments, the so-called maculated developments, should not be further elaborated to form collapsible boxes and, consequently, the maculated developments, segregated before further processing. (In another case, defective folding boxes are segregated before filling). The first segregation occurs according to the current state of the art, often in the area of the sheet feeder of the printer, with the help of a maculature diverter. In this process it is disadvantageous that it is considered as maculature, complete sheets, even when only defects are present, a single individual development of the sheet.

In addition, in the area of the sheet feeder, that is to say, in front of the folding and gluing itself, of the folding box gluing machines, measurement systems come into action. However, according to the current state of the art, these are relatively inaccurate, and defective developments can reach elaboration. Measurement systems are usually configured as sensors that read on printed lugs, printed barcodes. This ensures that only developments that belong to the freshly prepared batch will be developed further, and the intermingles will be separated.

Document DE 2005 054 122 A1 shows a quality control system in a printer. The quality control system has an inspection system with a camera for taking a printed image of a sheet with several developments. The data taken from the printed image is processed with an image processing device, with reference to the developments, and for the determination of defects, the data is compared with a set of reference data. A labeling or marking device is sent, and defective developments are marked during the passage through the machines. These markings can be read by subsequent machines for further processing, such as sheet punching machines or folding box gluing machines, and defective developments are ejected from the production process. It is disadvantageous in this solution that the use of additional marking or marking devices is necessary. The process “recognition of a defect”, “application of a code of defects”, “reading of the code of errors”, is neat and complicated.

Document DE 10 2005 026 127 A1 shows a printer with a control device for checking the printed image. Using a CCD [Charge - coupled Device] line scanning camera, the consistency of the register and the colorimetric properties of the printed image of a printed sheet are checked. Defective sheets can be ejected using a sorting device. In this solution it is disadvantageous that the sheet is also considered as a defective sheet, when only loose developments are defective.

Document DE 44 32 371 A1 describes a procedure for registering defective individual developments. In an image taking device, image signals from individual developments are produced, and a control or regulating device is followed. In the control device or regulator the image signals are processed at a later stage, and compared with a multitude of reference quantities. If the comparative values are exceeded, the defective individual development position is stored in memory.

Document US-A-2004/0251176 makes public a manufacturing system for the production of folding boxes, with a printer, with a die cutter, with an ejection module and with a folding box gluing machine, comprising both the printer and the ejection module, an evaluation device with camera system.

In all measurement systems known to the current state of the art, which are included in the printing process, it is disadvantageous that the number of really useful developments remains unknown to the printer. To ensure that sufficient useful developments are available for further processing on the die cutter and folding box gluing machine, and that the number of required folding boxes is reached, more developments have to be printed. The number of additional printed developments can be raised up to 20% of the theoretical number of developments. Since these additional printed developments are not paid, however, by the buyers of folding boxes, the printing presses are forced to keep under the number of developments to be printed additionally.

Therefore, it is the mission of the present invention to create an optimized manufacturing system, and to describe an optimized procedure in which the folding and gluing stations of a folding box gluing machine, developments are fed, and folding boxes affected by maculature

This mission is solved by a manufacturing system with the significant characteristic notes of claim 1, and by a procedure with the significant characteristic notes of claim 9.

A manufacturing system according to the invention for the production of folding boxes, has a printer for printing sheets of paper, cardboard and the like, a die cutter to punch the printed developments, of each of the sheets, an ejection module to eject defective developments, a folding box gluing machine, for folding and pasting developments to form folding boxes, and an image data memory. In the image data memory, image data referring to the developments are deposited, with theoretical values and tolerance zones. The printer has an evaluation device with camera system, for example, color, black and white or spectral cameras, for the control of the printed image, referring to the developments. The printer also has a useful development counter that is coupled with the printer control. As soon as a number of useful developments predefined by the machine operator or by the machine control have been reached, the useful developments counter sends a signal to the printer, for example, the command stops the printer. The ejection module has an evaluation device with camera system and an ejector diverter. The expulsion diverter serves for the expulsion of defective developments. The evaluation devices of the printer and the ejection module, of the manufacturing system according to the invention, are both connected to the image data memory, and can access the data of the image data memory. For the determination of whether a development is defective, the two evaluation devices work with a concordant evaluation logic.

In an advantageous and therefore preferred embodiment of the manufacturing system, the ejection module is part of the folding box gluing machine.

In an advantageous embodiment, the camera systems are formed by RGB cameras [Rot Grün Blau = Red Green Blue] and / or CCD cameras, which allow the recognition of ink control defects, geometric defects, record consistency, bubbles and intermingles (that is, developments that seem similar, that differ marginally in the printed text) and / or of absolute dimensions of symbols, drawings, labels and the like.

In an alternative embodiment, the machines of the manufacturing system are chained to each other by means of a transport system. The transport system may have linear transport means here, and have as drives, for example, linear electric motors or alternative field electric motors.

In an advantageous embodiment of the manufacturing system, the image data of a development is deposited in the image data memory, in PDF format. This allows an effective use of image data for printing, printing, and subsequent print jobs.

In an advantageous embodiment of the manufacturing system, the folding box gluing machine has, in the area of its sheet feeder, a counter device for counting the folding boxes. This can determine the number of useful folding boxes, manufactured at the time. If the theoretical number of the folding boxes to be produced is reached, the production process can be interrupted. If all the printed developments are further elaborated to form folding boxes, of the difference in the number of useful printed developments (determined by the useful developments counter of the printer), and of the number of useful folding boxes (determined by the counter device of the folding box gluing machine), the number of defects that have been generated during die cutting and in the folding box gluing machine can be deduced.

In an advantageous embodiment of the manufacturing system, the printer evaluation device is connected to the printer control, via a data line. The printer settings can be modified using the evaluation device and thus correct the defects during the printing process.

For the production of labels a similar manufacturing system can be used, which does not have folding and gluing stations. The quality control of the labels is carried out here in an analogous way, by means of evaluation devices with a camera system.

Also part of the invention is a process for feeding developments without maculature to the folding and gluing stations of a folding box gluing machine. Here, in a first phase, sheets are printed on a printer. Printed sheets are transported in front of a measuring system that is in the printer. The measurement system measures each of the developments of a sheet. The current image data thus deduced is compared with theoretical values and corresponding tolerance zones, deposited in an image data memory. If in a development of the specification, the comparison produces a deviation that exceeds the tolerance zone, a signal referring to the development will be sent to the interface of the printer control. Based on this information, the printer operator can correct the printer settings. If the comparison does not produce any deviation in a development of the sheet, which exceeds the tolerance zone, a signal referring to the development is sent to a counter of useful developments. In a subsequent phase, the sheets continue to be transported to a die cutter. The sheets are stamped there, slots are provided and the developments are separated. In a subsequent phase the developments continue to be transported to an expulsion module. In the ejection module, developments are transported in front of a measurement system that is located in the ejection module. Here the developments are measured by the measurement system. The areas of development in which the folded edges of the folding boxes are later placed, are masked, that is, they are set aside in the measurement. For the preparation of the folded edges, grooves in the developments are provided in the die cutter, so that a measurement of this area would distort the results of the measurement. The measurement results are compared with theoretical values and corresponding tolerance zones, deposited in the image data memory. When the comparison produces a deviation that exceeds the tolerance zone, a signal is sent to an ejector diverter. As soon as the defective development is in the area of the ejector diverter of the ejection module, it is ejected. Non-defective developments continue to be transported to a folding box gluing machine, and are fed to it.

In an advantageous improvement of the procedure, the useful developments counter sends a signal to the printer command, when the useful developments counter of the printer has determined a predefined number of useful developments, and the printer is automatically switched off, for example, automatically . This ensures that only as many developments as are really needed are printed below for further printing.

In an alternative embodiment of the procedure, the counter device of the folding box gluing machine sends a signal to the printer command, when the counter device has determined a predefined number of useful folding boxes, and the printer is disconnected, by example, automatically. Similar procedures also come into operation with advantage, in the case of a manufacturing system comprising a printer, folding machine and binding machine.

As for other advantageous conditioning of the invention, we refer to the secondary claims, as well as to the description of an exemplary embodiment, with reference to the attached drawings. Execution Example

The invention must still be explained in detail by the hand of an exemplary embodiment. In schematic representation are shown Figure 1 A transport system according to the invention.

Figure 2

A transport system according to the invention, with chained machines.

Figure 3

A transport system according to the invention, with a counter device

in the folding box gluing machine.

Figure 1 shows a transport system 100 according to the invention, with a printer 2, a die cutter 3 and a folding box punching machine 4. A stack 5 of sheets is fed into the conveyor device T of the printer 2. In the printer 2, the individual sheets pass in front of an evaluation unit 11 which serves to measure developments in a sheet. In addition, the printer has a counter 14 of useful developments for the determination of the number of useful developments. The counter 14 of useful developments is connected to the command (not shown) of the printer 2. The printed sheets are placed, they continue to be transported to a die cutter 3, where the developments of a sheet are stamped and separated. From the die cutter 3, the sheets continue to be transported to a folding machine 4 of folding boxes. The folding box gluing machine 4 has an ejection module 12 with an evaluation unit 11. Before the developments are folded and glued to form folding boxes, they pass the evaluation unit 11 in the ejection module. Defective developments are ejected by means of a bypass sluice (not shown) of the expulsion module 12, to a sample 7 of maculature. The flawless developments continue to be transported to the machine 4 folding box sticks, and there they are folded and pasted. The finished folding boxes are deposited in a stack 6, or packed in boxes (not shown). The evaluation units 11 of the printer 2 and the ejection module 12 are connected with an image data memory 13 via data lines.

Figure 2 shows a manufacturing system 100 similar to that of Figure 1. However, the machines 2, 3, 4 are here chained together, by means of a transport system 1. The transport system 1 can be formed, for example, by rails, on which pallet trucks can be moved.

Figure 3 shows a manufacturing system 100 similar to that of Figure 2. However, the folding box sticking machine 4 has a counter device 15 located in the exit zone of the folding box sticking machine 4. The counter device 15 serves to record the number of folding boxes that are manufactured by the manufacturing system 100.

In an embodiment not shown, the manufacturing system 100 has an information management system (MIS) for order planning. The signals of the useful development counter 14 and the counter device 15 can be used by the MIS for order planning. The relative number of defective parts is stored in memory by the MIS, referring to the orders. In case of repeated orders, these empirical values are used to determine the number of sheets to be printed on the printer.

List of reference symbols

1 2 3 54 5 6 7 11 10 12 13 14 15 100 15 T

20 Transport system Printer Punching machine Folding box gluing machine Pile of sheets Pile of folding boxes Sample of maculature

Evaluation unit Expulsion module Image data memory Useful development counter Counter device Manufacturing system Transport address

Claims (10)

1. Manufacturing system (100) for the production of folding boxes, with a printer (2) for the printing of sheets of paper, cardboard and the like, with a die cutter (3) to punch the printed developments of each of the sheets, with an ejection module (12), with a machine (4) for folding boxes, for folding and pasting developments to form folding boxes, and with a memory (13) of image data, characterized in that in the image data memory (13) is deposited image data referred to the developments, with theoretical values and tolerance zones, because the printer (2) has an evaluation device (11) with camera system, for the control of the printed image, referring to the developments, and a counter (14) of useful developments, the counter (14) of useful developments being coupled with the printer control (2) and the printer stopping (2), as soon as a predefined number has been reached of useful developments because the ejection module (12) comprises an evaluation device (11) with camera system and an ejector diverter, the devices being connected

(eleven)

evaluation of the printer (2) and the ejection module (12), with the image data memory (13), and being able to access the memory data

(13)

of image data, and working with a concordant evaluation logic.

2.

Manufacturing system according to claim 1, characterized in that the ejection module (12) is part of the folding box gluing machine (4).

3.

Manufacturing system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the camera systems of the evaluation devices (11) are formed by RGB cameras and / or CCD cameras, and allow the recognition of ink control defects, geometric defects , consistency of the record, bubbles, intermingles and / or absolute dimensions of symbols, drawings, labels and the like.

Four.

Manufacturing system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the machines (2, 3, 4) are chained to each other by means of a transport system (1).

5.

Manufacturing system according to claim 4, characterized in that the transport system (1) has linear drive transport means.

6.

Manufacturing system according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the image data of a development is deposited in the memory (13) of image data, in PDF format.

7.

Manufacturing system according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that the folding box punching machine (4) has a counter device (15) for counting the folding boxes in the sheet exit area.

8.

Manufacturing system according to any one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the printer evaluation device (11) (2) is connected to the printer control (2), via a data line, and the settings of the Printer (2) can be modified using the evaluation device (11).

9.

Procedure for feeding developments to the folding and gluing stations of a folding box gluing machine (4), especially by means of a manufacturing system (100) according to claim 1, characterized by the following steps:

a) Printing of sheets on a printer (2) b) Transport of the sheets in front of a measuring system that is in the printer (2) c) Measurement of the sheet, referring to developments, using the measuring system d ) Comparison of the measurement results with theoretical values and corresponding tolerance zones, deposited in a memory (13) of image data. e) Sending a signal referring to the developments, to the interface of the printer control, when the comparison produces a deviation that exceeds the tolerance zone, and a counter (14) of useful developments when the comparison does not produce in a development of the sheet, any deviation that exceeds the tolerance zone f) Continuation of transport to a die cutter (3) g) Die cutting of the sheets in the die cutter (3) with subsequent separation of the developments. h) Continuation of the transport of the developments to an expulsion module (12) i) Transport of a development ahead of a measurement system that is in the expulsion module (12) j) Measurement of the development by the measurement system k) Comparison of the measurement results with theoretical values and corresponding tolerance zones, deposited in the image data memory l) Sending a signal to an ejector diverter of the ejection module (12), when the comparison produces a deviation that exceeds the tolerance zone m) Expulsion of the defective development with the expulsion diverter 5 n) Continuation of the transport of non-defective developments within a machine (4) folding box glue machine. 10. Method according to claim 8 with the following additional step: e2) Disconnecting the printer (2) when a predefined number of useful developments has been reached. 10. Manufacturing system according to any one of claims 7 or 8, characterized in that the manufacturing system (100) has a management information system for order planning, taking advantage of the counter signals (14) of useful developments and of the device (15) counter, for the storage referred to the orders, of the relative number of defective parts.