IoT-Driven solutions to ensure minimal wastage for a packaging company

Challenges

The company has multiple packaging solutions, including packaging equipment, that they offer to their clients. They cater to various companies with multiple locations and shifts. Hence, it is imperative to provide quality products across the board. This would also allow them to adhere to their sustainability beliefs. To do so, it is necessary to keep an eye on each operation. However, it was difficult for the company to gather insights through a single interface.

12% of the global waste composition is plastic waste, which partially consists of plastic packaging among other plastic products and materials. – World Bank

The company's aim is to contribute to environmental causes like reducing plastic waste. They also want to reduce packaging without sacrificing quality. Their customers also require adhering to such terms and supporting their cause. Hence, it was important for their clients to also have a 360-degree view of their machines and products. Some of the key challenges that obstructed the company from achieving the desired results were:

Lack of operational visibility
No device monitoring system in place
Unplanned downtime
Film role and plastic packaging wastage

Solution

The company believes in providing sustainable solutions, not only in terms of material resources, but also by offering sustainable processes and efficiency. At Softweb Solutions, our subject matter experts understand the importance of sustainable packaging. To align with our client’s business goals and challenges, we conducted a thorough discussion with their team. After getting insights into the client’s business processes and infrastructure, our expert team of full stack developers suggested to build a web application to cater to their requirements.

Web application for their users

Their users can manage information about different locations and equipment.
They define work shifts for their employees and technicians.
Managers get notifications or alerts for maintenance or part change.

Device management

Every device has a unique ID. The web application enables our client to manage data associated with a unique ID or device.
The company can also view the work shift allocated to each machine.
They have a defined set of parameters for each of the devices. Admin can manage those parameters according to their requirements.

Rules

Leveraging the configuration information related to each equipment, the client and their customers set rules.
They also set upper and lower limits for film packaging according to the standards defined by them.
They set rules for wrap count and snooze them as required. This data is automatically refreshed every 30-40 seconds.
If any machine doesn’t follow the limit, the system detects anomaly and sends alerts to the responsible person.
They can schedule maintenance once they receive the notification alert.

Dashboard

The company gets a segregated view of all its devices under one interactive dashboard. They can even customize the dashboard. They can view the following parameters:
- Film-roll usage
- Active/inactive machines’ info
- Real-time insights on work shifts

Technologies

Node.js
Angular.js
MS SQL

Industry

Packaging

Benefits

Real-time data management
Proactive maintenance and repair
Reduced film wastage
Minimal plastic wastage
White labelling

Background

Our client is a packaging solutions provider based in North America that serves to its users worldwide. The company ousers a fully compliant GMP and GFSI manufacturing environment with multiple packaging options.
Summary

A plastic packaging solutions provider aimed to achieve their sustainability goals by reducing plastic waste. They wanted visibility across their entire operations to better understand their customers’ requirements and equipment usage. Softweb Solutions built a web application that provides the company with an in-depth view of their business processes. The web app also enables them to receive alerts in event of an anomaly, or scheduled repair and maintenance.