IoT specialist Telit is working with stretch wrapping supplier Lantech to change how companies package and protect their products for shipment from the factory floor to the retailer. Incorporating a range of Telit technology, the Lantech Intelligent Network Connection (LINC)) is designed to add stretch wrap pallet technology to smart factory management, decreasing film cost and boosting uptime, performance and load quality.

Without proper stretch wrapping, loads can fail and shift during shipment causing costly damage to a company’s product or brand. Lantech aims to address key problems that can face smart factories that stretch wrap pallet loads. LINC is Lantech’s first IoT powered SaaS offering which includes machine data, analysis, and alerts to allow users to monitor stretch wrapper performance remotely. It is powered by Telit’s deviceWISE Edge, deviceWISE Cloud, connectivity and LE910 cellular module.

A data visibility solution that allows subscribers to monitor machine data and performance in real-time, from any place, LINC provides actionable intelligence to maintain and improve system uptime, productivity, load quality, and cost — allowing customers to react to issues before they become problems.

Conventional stretch wrap pallet technology only allows information retrieval directly from the HMI for L-Series systems, legacy systems that do not tabulate summary data). Lantech built LINC to harvest and transmit data to allow for wrapper status and performance data to be collected, displayed and analysed without accessing a customer’s network. The goal of the system is to significantly reduce response times, downtime, quality problems and environmental impacts.

The LINC system incorporates:

• Telit deviceWISE Edge – Industrial IoT edge platform incorporating hundreds of industrial drivers. It interfaces directly with Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) and other industrial control systems, enabling the edge application and supporting machine learning
• Telit deviceWISE Cloud – cloud-based IoT platform that aggregates data collection, device management, secure remote access, connectivity management and remote access
• Telit connectivity – global visibility and control down to the individual SIM
• LE910 module family – LTE Cat 4 industrial grade modules for IoT applications that need both performance and affordability

“In 1972 Lantech revolutionised how customers ship their products with the invention of the stretch wrapper,” said Alex Verret, director of Customer Care Services, Lantech. “Today, Lantech stretch wrappers help our customers produce millions of safe-to-ship loads every year, at the lowest possible cost. LINC, our latest innovation, allows our customers to easily connect to machine performance data and proactively address issues to improve wrapping operations.”

“Viewing critical machine analytics anytime — from anywhere — is critical for today’s smart factories and represents a competitive advantage,” said David DeLaRosa, VP deviceWISE Industry 4.0, IoT Platforms Business Unit, Telit. “Empowering the right people to view data to improve uptime and productivity is often an overly complex task. deviceWISE simplifies the process by providing industrial drivers and enabling advanced edge logic, cloud connectivity and secure remote access.”

“Through our partnership with Lantech, its LINC system allows users to set and monitor performance targets and receive event-based notifications. This allows wrapping systems to become part of the team by notifying users when important events occur,” said DeLaRosa.