When powders become products, the ingredients must be available in the right quantities, the items must be filled into sales packaging, packed into boxes and stacked on pallets. For these process steps, Piab offers solutions that increase productivity, handle goods with care and reduce the physical strain on employees. The new generation of smart products is also ready for Industry 4.0. Sensory measurements, monitoring and data collection are all integrated to enable big data analysis, real-time adjustments, predictive maintenance and overall process optimization.

One example is the production of parts in injection molding or additive manufacturing. Powder or granules have to be removed from the warehouse and taken to a bag unloading station for further distribution. The Pilift Smart vacuum lifter from Piab - one of this year's innovations - takes the strain off backroom staff by recognizing and monitoring their movements and responding quickly to the user's intentions. It lifts and weighs loads simultaneously, captures and logs data and makes process statistics and analysis available immediately.

At the Swedish CoLab stand in Hall 27, visitors to Hannover will be able to see a smart packaging and sorting solution in action that enables the tracking and tracing of parts with integrated Pilift Smart and RFID for electronic labeling - a joint initiative between Carryline, Detab, StoraEnso and Piab.

Firstlook at the autotuning concept
Powder and granules are distributed in the correct quantity from the bag unloading station using the Piflow-p vacuum conveyor. At the trade fair, Piab will provide a first glimpse of its autotuning concept, which will be introduced later this year. It ensures that vacuum conveyors can adapt independently to different requirements in order to optimize the conveying cycle in automated processes.

To make configuring the right Piflow-p conveyor as easy as possible, Piab is working with Tacton, a provider of manufacturing software solutions. Piab and Tacton have developed a cloud-based "Configure Price Quote" solution including visual product configuration especially for the Hannover Messe. Customers can configure and customize highly complex vacuum conveyors as if they were standard. In an augmented reality app, the conveyor can be visualized in context to see it in a real environment.

The Pilift Smart vacuum lifter relieves the backs of employees by recognizing and monitoring their movements. © Piab

At the Swedish CoLab stand, this solution will be on display in the program and in the app itself, and will be demonstrated together with an exploded version of the Piab vacuum conveyor, making the potential changes inside physically visible.

Vacuum conveying in 3D printing
Vacuum conveying also plays a major role in dust-free additive manufacturing. An important requirement for 3D printing when it reaches large volumes is to protect people and the environment from fine dust and to ensure product quality and purity for a flawless process. At the CoLab stand, the Additive Manufacturing demonstration unit will present a robot-based version. An ABB robot will be used to print biocomposites from Stora Enso live during the show with Rise's advanced AM technology, using metal powder from Höganäs. Unibap and Ericsson will perform real-time monitoring with stereo camera and 5G connectivity, while Piab will provide the vacuum conveyor for material handling. The 3D printed product can come from either Electrolux or Stora Enso.

Piab itself is a user of additive manufacturing technologies for its customized grippers and in particular for the bodies of the Picobot and KCS cobot grippers. Thanks to the high-quality, lightweight, 3D-printed gripper base, the Picobot - presented for the first time at the Hannover Messe - is extremely light. Combined with its low overall height, it is designed to enable the highest possible load capacity in terms of both weight and dimensions. Integrated pisense valves allow the simultaneous handling of one or two different products.

With its powerful and Industry 4.0-capable integrated ejector technology, the Picobot offers the highest vacuum flow, the company promises. Together with Pigrip-configurable suction cups, it can even lift permeable material such as cardboard boxes or products with an uneven surface such as a bag of chips. The gripper can also be connected to the new vacuum gripper technology Pisoftgrip - a mixture of suction cup and fingers, which will be presented in more detail closer to the trade fair. Another Piab product that will be launched at the Hannover Messe.

At the Sweden CoLab booth, visitors can configure Piab vacuum conveyors with the Tacton software and visualize them in a process environment. © Piab

Roboticgripping for difficult geometries
When the article is produced by injection molding, it must be removed from the mold. Piab's robotic gripping experts develop customized end-of-arm tools (EOAT) ranging from simple tools for flat shapes to complex end effectors for difficult geometries and undercut parts. High-quality precision components for the self-configuration of EOATs will be on display at Piab's booth, as will the vacuum ejector technology and suction cups that are often part of the end effectors. The latest generation of Piab's main ejector - the Picompact Smart - is another innovation on show at the stand. Its intelligent functions are the basis for energy savings, predictive maintenance, automatic condition monitoring and real-time adjustment. as

Hall 17, Stand C05