For more than 75 years AGRODUR has been manufacturing innovative outstanding quality duroplastic and thermoplastic products as well as fluoroplastics. With its 275 highly qualified staff, AGRODUR is one of the leading companies in the plastic processing industry. Products are developed and manufactured for the electrical engineering and electrical installation, sanitary and automobile areas in the three production sites, Bad Berleburg, Radevormwald and Zorbau.
Hot runner controller MCS in production at Agrodur
AGRODUR is your partner throughout the whole value creation chain, from the idea, through design and simulation up to the finished product. As a supplier certified in accordance with ISO/TS 16949:2002, precision parts, including surface finishing up to complete assembly installation are produced.
The highest requirements for quality, delivery reliability and adherence to delivery dates etc. mean that all production data can be documented and tracked for up to 10 years. The precise temperatures to be adhered to by control technology are important in particular. With regard to this, AGRODUR, together with FELLER ENGINEERING, has been a reliable partner since 1990.
This data documentation remit has been performed on more than 90 injection moulding machines using Visual FECON. The software provides a fast overview of the current status of the temperature controller on site. More than 60 RSA, MCS and stackable MCS control units and model ranges are used. As well as historic data management, Visual FECON with its integrated formula management, also makes a significant contribution to flawless, fast operation when changing a product or tool. This ensures that new process parameters can be imported easily, quickly and with no errors.
Automobil area
Surface technology
Sanitary engineering injection moulded parts
Filter technology
Individual Process optimization – Autoexport
All production islands are linked to the company network via the Ethernet. At AGRODUR’s suggestion, Visual FECON was integrated into the Autoexport function. This function enables process values to be saved every hour on the central company server as well as messages that have accumulated in the meantime.
This server is located in the head office in Radevorwald 100 km away and is linked via a dedicated line. As the server has extensive data backup measures, the production status of any old batches can be reproduced and logged in this way.
Apart from the production monitoring function, Visual FECON at AGRODUR is also used for its own tool maintenance and repairs. The injection moulded tools must be dismantled and cleaned at specified intervals. The Visual FECON tool doctor function is used after the tools are assembled again.
Thus the tool undergoes various tests that check for correct sensor allocation amongst other things, that compare the heating up times and heating currents with the Good status originally determined and document the results in a diagnosis log. Thus wiring or assembly errors are detected even before commissioning in production and idle and machine downtimes are avoided. Not until the tool has successfully passed the test is it found to be Good and released for use in production. This guarantees a flawless, timely production sequence.
New technologies and procedures will also be a challenge in future for AGRODUR that will be met in control technology, process data recording and documentation together with its partner, FELLER ENGINEERING.