Measure, understand, improve

Variation management is the key to Nordson’s latest OptiBond technology which has been developed to improve production efficiency, reduce maintenance and enhance product quality for manufacturers of disposable hygiene products based on nonwovens.

The latest VersaBlue Plus  adhesive melters demonstrated at IDEA13 in Miami introduce optional melter-integrated flow monitoring and closed-loop flow control for up to four channels to the technology’s full-feature set.

The closed-loop control continuously measures the material flow rate and compares it to the application’s flow requirement – the output of the melter pump is automatically adjusted in real-time to minimise the difference between the requirement and actual flow rates.

Integrating flow control simplifies both the installation and the need for additional as well as providing ease-of-use through touch screen interfaces. The intuitive, easy-to-use graphical touch display simplifies set-up and operation and provides system status for the various melter functions. Basic graphing and data reporting of the flow control are also available on the melter display, or more detailed information can be exported to a laptop or via field bus.

“VersaBlue Plus melters were developed to meet the market needs of our sophisticated customer base, particularly nonwovens product manufacturers,” says Andreas Bornkessel, Nordson nonwovens market development manager. “Implementing solutions to control material flow allows manufacturers to more efficiently and cost-effectively produce higher quality products for the consumer.”

Nordson’s broad range of OptiBond solutions includes passive or active metering, point-of-application or intermediate system component and melter-integrated or standalone control.