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SAGE Automation. “SAGE is known across the
industry for its expertise and quality, and we
hope that this is the beginning of a very successful
partnership,” he says.
“NORD’s decentralised solution looks to modular
assembly for ease and reduced downtime during
component failure. It also offers a decentralised
inverter which is economical and robust. The
site did not have access to three phase power
and as such, the project made use of a Nordac
base - a single phase input supply option for 0.25
- 1.5kW,” Pillai says. With their development
team, NORD managed to engineer plug connector
solutions for both power supply and EtherCAT
connection.
“In keeping the footprint compact, the Nordac
base offers assembly of an internal EtherCAT
field bus card. The flexibility of being able to
assemble dual plugs on the Nordac Base for both
power supply connection as well as M12 connectors
that enabled field bus communication, in
turn allowed for simple daisy chain topology to
be realised for the inverter modules.”
FAR-REACHING
CONSQUENCES
The technology has far reaching
applications for industrial players;
combinations of the vision technology,
sorting system and/or IoT data
network could bring facilities faster
and more accurate quality processes
and data probity at low costs.
The customer facing solution was
developed and deployed as Platform
as a Service (PaaS), which reduces IT
infrastructure and data hosting costs
– and gives depots unparalleled data
probity. “The vision CSS accurately
sorts and counts containers by type
as well as providing daily and historical
reports, depot performance,
material amounts and linking to
CCTV to deal with customer issues,”
Nukon senior consultant Damian
Jolly says. “What’s exciting here is
how the technology we’re using, like
single-board computers and cloudbased
IT infrastructure, is cheap
to implement and run,” Jolly says.
“We can set up five or six devices
for less than the cost of a desktop
computer. We’d never be able to do
this with traditional technologies, so
this shows how the IoT is changing
our world – from manufacturing to
recycling and beyond.”
Read how the four smart container
solutions work in the case study
here: http://www.nukon.com.au/
success-stories/iot-provides-answerto
war-on-waste
The companies’ Vision Counting
& Sorting System (CSS)
solution has been named finalist
for the Design Innovation
of the Year Award (beverage
category) and the 2018 Sustainable
Packaging Design Award
for Machinery/Equipment. The
Vision CSS automatically sorts,
identifies and counts container
types for recycling depots – all
to help increase the uptake of
recycling under the Australian
Container Deposit Legislation
(CDL) scheme. The system is a
premier example of the Internet
of Things (IoT) in practice. Container
data is sent to the cloud
for a faster processing and customer
refund process, as well
as historical reporting and greater
probity of information across
multiple sites. It is one of four
smart solutions developed
by SAGE and sister company
digital transformation consultancy
Nukon to improve long held
problems experienced by the
recycling depot industry. Under
the CDL, recycling depots in
South Australia, Northern Territory
and New South Wales accept
cans, bottles and cartons
from the public in exchange for
a small refund. But the industry
has faced many challenges
including long wait times for
customers, theft and poor
count accuracy due to manual
counting and sorting, that eats
away at profit margins. Until
now, technology alternatives to
the manual counting method
have also been limited; the European
made reverse vending
machines on the market only
accept and scan containers
with intact barcodes – and one
at a time. Anything slightly damaged
or with no label cannot be
refunded.
A WINNING MIX
The Result -
a Happy Customer
For Brett Duncanson, it’s all about the war
on waste. The new development comes just
ahead of the national legislation roll out of a new
Government Recycling Programme, and places
CDSA in the fortunate position of being able to
help recycling plants to be up and running, and
ready for the new programme in no time. "We
are more than pleased with the solution and are
currently busy with the second prototype,” Duncanson
says. “What we do is extremely important
to both our customers and the environment.
The solution supplied by SAGE Automation and
its partners will make a big difference to our customers
by helping to improve productivity.”
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