Consumables

Metal printing with increased process efficiency

Thursday 02. July 2020 - High demands are made on the quality of metal cans. The Turkish manufacturer ARKIN METAL has a modern production line with a high-performance metal printing machine for the production of cans. The high quality of the products is monitored with DecoSTAR from ISRA VISION.

With the modern solution for 100% print inspection from the world’s leading supplier of surface inspection systems, the high demands placed on metal decorations are optimally met. The solution has proven itself successfully.
ARKIN METAL produces printed sheets that are further processed into cans for edible oil and other food and non-food packaging. A KBA Metalstar 2, one of the fastest metal printing machines in the world, has been used for the printing process for several years. The machine can print 8500 sheets per hour. ARKIN’s customers are in turn filling companies that place the highest quality demands on the printed metal packaging.
Before the KBA machine was installed and the production speeds were not yet that high, the few errors could still be found and eliminated manually. Due to the high speed of the machine, however, it became increasingly difficult for the ARKIN employees to control production and detect problems. In addition, the number of colour applications increased. Therefore, ARKIN METAL started to evaluate an inspection system for its metal printing machine. ISRA VISION was quickly preferred as the supplier of inspection solutions, as the systems are characterized by their particular reliability and stability.
The user’s goals with regard to inspection included quality improvement, reduction of waste and – associated with this – an increase in saleable material. In addition, the quality management was to be improved and the know-how on the customer as well as on the operator level was to be enhanced.
For the user, the use of the DecoSTAR inline inspection system has decisive advantages: The unique and tailor-made solution ensures – based on the highly accurate measurement and the movement compensation for the sheets – a perfect print quality of the metal decorations. After installation of the inspection system, the recurring defects could be categorized and then eliminated. After only a short time, the operators could no longer imagine operating the production line without the inspection system.
The inspection system uses an 8K color camera and can inspect up to 10,000 sheets per hour at 100%. Defects with a size of 0.03 mm2 can be reliably detected. Among the defects detected are differences in contrast, dust, dirt and hidden lines at different printing speeds. The system also monitors the printed sheets for possible colour deviations.
The Turkish ISRA Vision Team supported the operators on site during the instruction of the inspection system and trained them accordingly. The short installation time and the easy teach-in made it possible to put the system into operation within a few days.
The inspection solution has now proven itself successfully for four years. By detecting all relevant defects, ARKIN METAL achieved a more stable production level for its line. The controllability of the production line even at high speeds has increased noticeably. Waste in production was significantly reduced due to early defect detection. Possible problems are solved before delivery to the customers. Complaints are thus prevented.
Reproducible quality at highest speeds
The data collected by the inspection system is systematically evaluated and further used: The manufacturer uses the feedback from faulty sheets to optimize production. The size of all defects in all produced metal sheets is recorded. This simplifies documentation and also supports convenient communication with the manufacturer’s customers. All in all, the inspection system allows for a completely trouble-free delivery of the produced goods to the customers and thus ensures higher customer satisfaction.
Onur Tecim, production manager at ARKIN METAL, is highly satisfied with the inspection system. “Thanks to the ISRA system we were able to achieve a more stable production within the printing process. Thanks to the defect detection, which leads to early intervention by our operators, the reject rate has been significantly reduced. We were also able to reduce customer complaints and better meet our customers’ quality expectations”.