Definitions

Reducing production scrap is one of the main tasks of process monitoring. In the event of malfunctions such as tool breakage, material defects, feeding and handling faults, the production machine is switched off immediately in order to avoid further defective parts and to protect the machine and tool from consequential overload damage. Without the use of process monitoring, larger production quantities often have to be scrapped, as even a few sporadic missing parts may have contaminated the existing yield, and in many cases a separation is technically or economically impossible.

Process monitoring is particularly effective with suitable sorting gates, which are activated by the monitoring system when faults occur and automatically separate the error parts without stopping the machine. Contamination of the existing yield is thus avoided while the productivity of the machines is significantly improved.