Automation of a planing system for plastic panels

Ottensteiner Kunststoff GmbH & Co.KG specializes in the development and production of engineering plastics. For over 45 years, the company has been supplying the market-leading industry with semi-finished products made of high- and ultra-high-molecular low-pressure polyethylene as well as finished parts made of engineering plastics such as HMW-PE, UHMW-PE, PP, PTFE, PVDF, POM, and PA.

OKULEN^® plastics are used all over the world

OKULEN^® plastics, from polypropylene to highly wear-resistant PE-UHMW, are used all over the world. In order to further optimize and automate the production process, Ottensteiner Kunststoff GmbH & Co.KG and SYSTRAPLAN have jointly developed a fully automatic circulation system for a plastic sheet planing machine.

Potentially dangerous manual tasks have been eliminated

Plastic panels with a length of up to 4.3 m and a weight of up to 600 kg can be transported through the planing system several times. Particularly when dealing with heavy panels, the automatic handling system achieves a significant improvement in terms of ergonomics.

Feeding, stacking, and turning

The panels are fed into the system as a stack and separated by means of vacuum handling. After planning the first surface, the panels are turned with a drum turner and stacked again with another vacuum handling system.

Multiple runs of the panels

After the first planing run, this stack can be automatically fed back into the planer also to plane the underside. This process can be repeated several times until the desired quality or surface is achieved.

Quality assurance through continuous monitoring of the processes

The plastic panels are automatically stacked on a pallet at the end of the planing process. The automatic process allows the processing data of all panels to be saved for quality assurance purposes.

Customised solutions

In addition to automatic panel handling, SYSTRAPLAN also offers concepts for the automatic storage and picking of panel-shaped materials.

SYSTRAPLAN’s particular strength lies in the development of customized solutions.