Application of Packaging Information Technology in Carton Manufacturing

First, the new needs of the carton factory

The role of carton suppliers is no longer just the production of cartons. The carton factory must provide customers with complete services, including:

1. According to customer's packaging requirements, provide recommendations for carton (including supporting partitions, foam cushions, etc.) specifications, and even design.

2. To provide customers with timely and accurate order fulfillment or processing, such as delivery, inventory, work in progress, work plan.

3. Become an organic link in the customer's supply chain to produce and supply cartons to help customers achieve their business goals. Product and manufacturing technology, especially for the carton manufacturing industry, is no longer a secret weapon for competition. Improving the efficiency of manufacturing and providing perfect services is the key to today's competition.

4. The customer's requirements are getting higher and higher. In the product, the packaging of electrical and electronic products will require more complex carton structure, including die-cutting molding, multiple partitions in the box, etc. Food packaging also requires more complex printing. In service, customers will request timely delivery. The price of the product is determined by the market. The company must be profitable. It can only reduce costs and increase efficiency while satisfying customer requirements. In the carton production process, several major ways to reduce costs in order to make profits.

Second, the role of information technology
Information technology is a powerful tool for carton manufacturing to achieve low cost and high efficiency. Early computer systems were mainly used for data processing such as accounting, order processing, and print delivery orders. The computer integrated manufacturing system focuses on assisting users to provide value-added services for their customers.

1. Computer Aided Design (CAD)

Some software systems, such as Artios, IPDS, LesComCom, etc., provide and allow users to create a graphic library of carton designs and dies, as well as sample data for famous brand machine tools.

2. Product Structure (BOM) and Process Routing Design
For example, the software system CIMPACK for the carton manufacturing industry can assist users in establishing a typical product structure and typical process flow for each product. When a customer orders a new product, the user can devise a typical design to modify it, greatly reducing the pre-production preparation cycle.

3. Order and delivery management
The computer system can evaluate the new product based on its materials, specifications, dimensions, and the complexity of the process flow. The use of computer integrated manufacturing systems can effectively arrange and record production, inventory, and delivery of orders, particularly on-time delivery orders. This allows the sales department to see the progress of each order from the computer at any time in order to take early action on events that may be high on the plan.

4. Computer-aided job schedule
Based on the order's delivery date, required materials, and the machine's production capacity, the computer scheduling system automatically generates job schedules. The production dispatcher is on the electronic plan board and is modified according to the actual situation of the workshop and urgent orders. A good job schedule can effectively reduce the loss of raw paper, reduce downtime and frequency, and ensure delivery date.

5. Paper Management
Unlike general inventory management software, the paper management system can be specific to the location and production usage of each roll of paper, and has automatic conversion between length, weight, and diameter. In general, the procurement cycle of the base paper is much longer than the delivery cycle of the carton, and the computer system can also make predictions on the future demand for raw paper.

Third, computer integrated manufacturing system
We know that the traditional management methods based on human beings are flawed. The new business environment brings new challenges and new methods are needed. The new approach is a structural diagram of a computer-integrated manufacturing system. The most important feature of computer integrated manufacturing systems is integration. From a management point of view, integration has the following advantages: (1) Integration encourages people to look at and deal with local problems from the whole. So people can consider system optimization to the greatest degree instead of local optimization; (2) Integration can minimize intermediate processes, especially duplicate data registration and processing, all of which constitute non-processing processes and time; (3) Integration can ensure real-time information With accuracy. $41. The computer integrated manufacturing system is completely different from the early computer systems.

With the rapid development of computer hardware and software that began in the late 1980s, the degree of integration of decision processes in information processing has reached a criss-cross and well-ordered stage. In general, there are three levels of integration: (1) Integration of internal information processing and decision-making processes within an enterprise, such as product design, order entry, and production schedule integration of information and decision-making by various departments; (2) Business processes and Integration of the production process. For example, the integration of the enterprise management department with the production line control system forms an order, ordering, and production train.

From order entry to production schedules to machine controllers, automated information transfer and conversion can be completed in minutes. This will significantly shorten the entire production cycle; (3) the integration of the enterprise with the outside, that is, the integration of the corresponding systems of the enterprise with customers and suppliers. E-commerce is such an integrated tool to form customers, warehouses, and factories, and customers can enter orders through the Internet. Check the progress of each order, such as production, inventory, delivery, delivery records, etc. Looking at the company's records in different departments, information inquiry and exchange are all efforts. This kind of tool for different companies to share information through the Internet enables enterprises to provide customers with perfect services to help them achieve their business goals. As the computer integrated manufacturing system aims to help manufacturers increase productivity and provide value-added services for manufacturers, the corresponding commercial software must be professional, such as production scheduling. At the same time, software developers must have a fairly deep understanding of the industry in order to informatize the business process. Commercial software that has been used very successfully in a certain industry may not be able to be processed in another industry at all. Successful industry software developers must have a fairly deep knowledge of the industry's production and management. Therefore, the trend of commercial software development is the industrialization of more and more industry software and general software.

2. The difference between computer integrated manufacturing systems and early data processing systems lies in their information integration capabilities. With the rapid development of computer hardware and software, the degree of information integration has reached a criss-cross and well-ordered stage.

Automatic control (order, sort, production train). From the order input to the production schedule, to the machine controller's automatic information transfer and conversion process. According to user data in Singapore and Malaysia, the whole process can be completed in dozens of minutes. The entire delivery cycle is only a few hours.

Extranet. This kind of tool for different companies to share information through the Internet makes it possible to provide customers with perfect services and help them achieve their business goals. It is truly possible, and the popularity of the Internet has also made operating costs popular. In Singapore, some carton factories with only a few dozen employees have also used extranets to allow their customers to instantly check the order delivery and production progress.

Fourth, the realization of packaging information
Informatization is not only accomplished by computerization or the setup of an ERP system. Informatization encompasses many phases, namely office computerization—ERP management systems—paperless production processes. Although the computerization of the office can not fully meet the needs of the carton industry, it has basically used the computer to open bills and organize customer data to satisfy the basic paperwork. The ERP can further carry out the entire process for it, so that the original scattered and individual operating system has a source to facilitate management, but ultimately it is necessary to reach a paperless operation, so that the office, production workshop, and warehouse are all computerized. carry out.

A paperless paper production management system developed by a well-known information company in Singapore, from the base paper to the finished product shipment, the whole production process is entirely arranged by computer. In addition to the orders placed by the customer from the input personnel, the production process includes paper distribution, paper machine feeding, printing press printing, and post-processing sequence, and the estimated completion time. Workshop operators only need to follow the instructions given by the computer to complete the operation, so that the workshop production management is simplistic. With remote management, production conditions can be grasped thousands of kilometers away and adjusted according to actual conditions.

It is understood that the machinery manufacturers currently able to integrate with this system are limited to machines manufactured in countries such as Europe and the United States after 2000, and they must have the functions of supporting communication protocols (PCP/IP). Because it uses a local server as the center of a server, it connects the computer of the paper machine with the printing machine and the post processing department. All the production processes are transmitted to the paper machine through the server through the server through the production management computer. When the paper machine finishes paper,