Research & Development
Over the years, IPS has always supported research and development of new technologies. Every project is taken care of down to the smallest detail and is developed together with the end customer. As a result, this push for customised product customisation has had a positive influence on the continuous search for new packaging solutions. IPS will always be synonymous with evolution and research for your packaging solutions.
Eco-sustainable packaging: green commitment
First of all, the new frontier of eco-sustainable packaging, which is still posing challenges in the use of films with low environmental impact. In this field, IPS has developed a flow pack sealing system for films composed of 100% paper and therefore completely recyclable, without any addition of plastic material inside. Furthermore, all those sealing solutions allow the sealing of biodegradable or compostable films which, to this day, are evolving into increasingly innovative products every year.
A great effort was also directed towards the design of sealing systems for water-soluble heat-shrinkable films, which after years allowed the construction of automatic high-speed packaging lines exceeding 1000 ppm, with integrated control of the packaged product combined with cutting-edge optical vision systems.
The synergy that has been created over the years between IPS and its electronic partners has allowed the development of new sealing control technologies. Systems that allow instant control of the temperature of the heatsealing components, thus guaranteeing perfect sealing at all times. Everything is completely developed according to the Industry 4.0 standard, a system that is opening up new frontiers and technological challenges, making even the packaging machines capable of exchanging data with the outside and allowing great control over production by the end customer.
Industry 4.0
In recent years, the world of industry is facing a set of challenges due to the protection of global resources which, more than ever, tend to be increasingly limited.
For this reason, IPS has welcomed with open arms the innovation linked to Industry 4.0 technology, which allows, thanks to digitalisation and automation, to face these new challenges.
Our entire range of machines, upon request, can be equipped with a technological compartment that will allow you to operate with fully automated and interconnected machines. The advantages of this system are innumerable: collection and use of a large amount of production data for centralization and their conservation, possibility of using this data for statistical and analytical purposes, improvement of the interaction between operator and machine (thanks to use of increasingly “touch” interfaces) and use of robotics in every packaging process.
All of this will likely change the way to work and will almost certainly influence the labour market. IPS can support all your related requests, to allow integration suited to your needs and to be able to take full advantage of this very powerful technological system.
To also encourage small and medium-sized industries to participate in this digitalisation, from 2023 IPS has decided to make available, upon request, a software called “Manufacturing Management System” or MMS for production management. This system integrates perfectly with our range of machines, created with Industry 4.0 protocol, and allows bidirectional communication, in real time, between machines in production and connected to the same network. All this happens using a simple and intuitive interface. The advantage is that of having a system available that not only collects production data, but processes and analyzes them, allowing the user to obtain graphs on the weekly trend of production or on the trend of hours worked, helping to understand the real production efficiency of the company. The great advantage of this system is that it allows the company to be truly competitive both on the national and global markets.
Perfect sealing
IPS, with its partner OMRON, can provide an innovative system for controlling the temperature during the packaging cycle on the whole range of packaging machines. This is Perfect Sealing, developed by Omron and installed, upon request, by IPS on its machines.
This is a device that allows the packaging machine to avoid problems relating to different types of film, faulty seals caused by heat that is not perfectly homogeneous, incorrect temperature readings or simply defects linked to a non-optimal production speed. With this system a perfect sealing or forming are assured.
In the traditional sealing system it can happen that heaters and thermo-couples are too far from the actual sealing point, and this causes a difference between the temperature of the sealing surface and the one actually controlled. This difference increases with a higher packaging speed or even with a change in the type of packaging material.
Therefore the advantage is to keep the temperature of the sealing surfaces constant, both when the machine is stopped and when it is running, during which with each seal the film absorbs heat from the sealing masses creating a small variation in the actual temperature reading. The objective is to prevent this variation by best synchronizing the sealing temperature and reducing the scrap as much as possible thanks to exact temperature control.
This makes the difference between the sealing surface temperature and the actual controlled temperature. In this way it will be possible to increase speed, change films, control the temperature, reduce scraps and extend the useful life of the product thanks to Omron’s Perfect Sealing solution, in collaboration with IPS.
