Full traceability
The HEXPOL standard is clear: We want to track the lot number of every raw material in every batch we produce in any of our factories.
For every material delivered to our sites, we generate an internal material label including a unique lot number. The labels contain by the way also all important health & safety information in the local language. This way we can make sure that in case of an incident, the relevant information can be spotted quickly as it’s printed always on the same position with the same layout whereas each supplier has its own label design.
We don’t settle with scanning our internal lot numbers: Especially for polymers where every pellet has a unique lot number, we additionally take a picture of the supplier label to ensure we have all relevant information collected. Also, we have started a new procedure of tracking pre-weighed chemicals by printing QR codes on the EVA bags. The codes are scanned when preparing the chemicals to marry the content with a bag and they are scanned again at the mixer to read out the lot numbers contained in a bag.
User are notified with a sound and in a big information box in the screen if they have picked a wrong or expired raw material.
Additional to tracking material lot numbers, we are also recording a broad variety of production parameters and environmental data around the mixing to quickly get a good impression of what is happening. It also helps us to identify potential defects in a batch, so that we can organize extra testing to verify the quality of those batches.
We are recording an average of 56 data points per production line, including at least the mixer rotor speed, temperature, ram position and pressure, energy consumption and material weights. These parameters have been defined as the HEXPOL standard, but most plants are collecting a lot more than this. Our latest development is recording the ambient temperature, humidity and air pressure in our production to link it as meta data to each batch. We hope to find correlations here to automatically adjust the test frequency based on findings of the AI.
Contact our global experts
To learn more about how we can make a material difference in your business, contact our skilled staff representatives for more detailed information.
