Bühler presents Digital Cell

Bühler explains that this breakthrough in die-casting technology involves taking a holistic approach. “To achieve a step-change in die casting, it’s not enough to focus on single components,” said Jonathan Abbis, Managing Director of Bühler Die Casting in a press release. “To significantly boost productivity, we have to tackle the system as a whole.” With its Digital Cell development, the company from the St.GallenBodenseeArea is pursuing three objectives: 0 percent scrap, 40 percent less cycle time and 24/7 uptime.

Bühler is bringing together three solutions to form the Digital Cell, the first of which is the Smart Cell Management System (SmartCMS), the “digital brain”. This has the capability to coordinate and manage all activity in the die-casting cell, improving automation, process performance and overall equipment effectiveness. The second breakthrough of the Digital Cell is a set of digital services for reducing downtime to an absolute minimum. This uses machine learning and sensor data to deliver predictions for future issues, allowing repairs and interventions to be scheduled at an optimum time. According to Bühler, “it cuts expensive and time-consuming downtime by ten times” and the validated accuracy of prediction is 95 percent.

Bühler's third key development is Fusion, a next generation die-casting platform, which can make full use of Smart CMS’ future capabilities. “Smoother servo-driven hydraulics can cut cycle time and reduce energy consumption by up to 40 percent,” the press release reports. Some aspects of the Digital Cell are currently still in the planning stages, such as the integration of infrared cameras for thermal management processes. With the first steps taken, more work is now needed to realize the vision of the Digital Cell and fully adopt the power of digital.