Horizon will demonstrate fully automated finishing at its Think Smart open house in Japan at the start of October.
The finishing equipment manufacturer was inspired to create a live open house by the success of the Hunkeler Innovation Days where printers run live jobs in collaboration with its own equipment. This model was transposed to Japan for the first time five years ago, becoming more ambitious each time.
Now, in the same year as Drupa, Horizon plans to demonstrate a hands-free lights out production process at this year’s event.
IFS technical sales director Jason Seaber says: “We have a small group of customers coming out to Japan. Unfortunately the timing is such that few are able to commit to a week away from their business.
“The theme for the event is lights out production, showing hands-free production for books and for booklets and similar stitched products. This is definitely where automation is heading thanks to developments in robot arms, AGVs and AMRs – other industries are already using these technologies.”
One area that Seaber says is frequently discussed is automation after the trimmer, to load boxes or move jobs to the dispatch or storage areas which is currently dependent on manual labour to sort products into the appropriate boxes or pallets. On a book line, for example, some books printed on demand, some as book or one and some in short run batches can be delivered in sequence. Horizon will show how these can be sorted using barcodes to identify and direct each to the correct area and adding the dispatch label for that delivery.
“That’s a new area for Horizon to be involved with,” he says. “Stacking and packing after the delivery is a topic that will become more and more important.”
The company says: “Horizon Smart Factory 2024 will push the boundaries of automation achieving completely autonomous printing, finishing, packaging, and shipping with cutting edge technology like AGV, robotics, and AI.
“Seamless integration of printers, finishing equipment, and workflow systems will allow for the monitoring of each job’s production status and progress. This new level of automation gives operators the opportunity to shift from repetitive, labour intensive tasks to more fulfilling work while achieving a good work-life balance.”
There will be printing lines from Canon, Fujifilm, Konica Minolta, Riso, Ricoh, Screen and RMGT. There will be software from Ultimate Tech, Tessitura, OneVision and SpencerMetrics to link the presses to Horizon’s finishing equipment. Robot vehicles will be used to move work from presses to finishing lines where if necessary, robot arms can pick up and load jobs as well as remove finished jobs and load pallets or cartons.
