Future-Ready Connectivity Solutions – How to Revolutionize Industrial Printing

Today, we’re diving into some exciting technical use cases around data acquisition and data standardization. We’ll explore how Time-Sensitive Networking solutions are revolutionizing industrial Ethernet, particularly through Keller’s innovations in the printing industry. What can these solutions do? How can they help you? What kind of use cases is Keller implementing, and what does the implementation process look like?
Stay tuned as we answer these questions with our expert guests. As always, you can find all the detailed project information in the show notes and on iotusecase.com. Let’s get started and enjoy this special episode!

Hi, John, Michał, and Piotr, glad you could join us today. John, could you explain what you do and your role at the CC-Link Partner Association in Europe?

John

Sure, thanks Madeleine. My name is John Browett, and I’m the General Manager of the CC-Link Partner Association for Europe. CC-Link is currently the world’s leading industrial Ethernet technology. CC-Link IE TSN is the only open industrial Ethernet technology that combines gigabit Ethernet with Time-Sensitive Networking.
Here in Europe, we work with a wide range of vendors to integrate this technology into their products, and we’re seeing great results. This is part of a global effort to expand CC-Link IE TSN’s market share worldwide.

When you say worldwide, where exactly are you based?

John

Our European headquarters is near Düsseldorf, Germany, but I’m currently based in the UK, southwest of London.

Thank you. You also brought more guests with you today. Michał, could you tell us about your role?

Michał

Good afternoon. My name is Michał Cydzik, and I’m the Product Manager for Control Systems at Mitsubishi Electric. We provide factory automation solutions across various industries, including automotive, food and beverage, logistics, and process automation. As John mentioned, we integrate CLPA technology into our solutions, such as PLCs, HMIs, servo drives, motion controllers, and robots, all part of our product portfolio.

Great! I’d love to hear more in a moment. Where are you based?

Michał

I’m broadcasting from Wroclaw, in southwest Poland, but our headquarters are in Krakow.

Thank you! I look forward to diving into more details. Lastly, Piotr, tell us about your role and your work at Keller.

Piotr

Thank you. I’m the CEO of Keller. We manufacture industrial printing machines and provide consumables, services, and training. Our main customers are from the automotive, plastic and glass packaging, cosmetics, spirits, home appliance, pharma, medicine, and consumer electronics industries. We’re based in Poland.

I’ve seen your machines online, and we had some pre-discussions, but I’d love for you to give our audience some details about how they look. Could you describe the machines a bit to give us insights into how they work?

Piotr

Sure! In a typical printing process, the first step is transport, followed by loading. Then, surface treatment is necessary, especially for plastic packaging, to prepare the substrate for printing. After that, we usually handle positioning, printing, curing or drying. This process can be repeated depending on how many colors are required. In the packaging industry, it’s common to add operations like hot stamping, which creates a glossy, chrome-like effect. Quality control follows, and for more complex projects, there can be assembly, packaging, and final loading. That’s the typical workflow.

Great, thank you. What would also be interesting for our IoT podcast listeners is how you work with data. I’d love to hear about your vision for digitalization for your customers, given that you’re a market leader with years of experience. 

Piotr

Today’s customers operate in a very volatile and unpredictable environment. There are three key advantages of our solution. First, you don’t need to predict the future precisely. That’s crucial because building a machine takes about six months, and then it takes another year or two of production to see a return on investment. Instead of guessing the exact machine configuration you’ll need for the next two years, our solution allows you to reconfigure the machine effectively, add new operations, or even downgrade if needed—for example, splitting a two-color screen printing machine into two single-color machines.

So you’re also seeing new requirements from your customers that you need to address in the market, correct?

Piotr

Exactly. The second advantage is the ability to produce short series effectively, making it profitable to handle short-run production. Our setup is fast and efficient, and tooling is simple and affordable. Lastly, the third benefit is that you don’t need highly skilled operators, as the technology simplifies the process for them. These are the real business benefits for our customers.

I see. So you’re also supporting employees with data-driven features and gaining insights into how operators use the machines?

Piotr

Yes, it makes the lives of operators and supervisors much easier.

Thank you. Michał, since Mitsubishi Electric is a long-standing partner working closely with the CC-Link Partner Association, can you share how you collaborate with Keller and the CC-Link Partner Association? How does it align with Keller’s vision for the future?

Michał

We have been working with CLPA since the beginning of Mitsubishi Electric, starting with our earlier CC-Link technology. Now, with the new CC-Link IE TSN, which is based on industrial Ethernet, we are implementing these solutions in our latest factory automation systems. In this particular case, we’ve been cooperating with Keller since 2012. Since then, we’ve introduced many new technologies, machines, and ideas. Today, we’ll discuss the latest advancements. Thanks to CC-Link IE TSN and hardware like our Motion systems and PLCs, we’ve been able to solve many challenges encountered during this cooperation.

To understand that better, I’d love to delve into the project. John, can you give us some background and explain why these technologies are so important?

John

Sure. As Piotr mentioned, it’s a very large and sophisticated machine used for printing various containers, particularly for the cosmetics industry. Given the complex motion control processes—like moving bottles and printing on them—the machine operates with close to 70 different axes of motion, making it a large-scale motion control system. Essentially, everything on the machine is networked using CC-Link IE TSN industrial Ethernet, so all these motion axes, along with other processes, are connected using CLPA network technology. Mitsubishi Electric has incorporated our technology into all the devices, resulting in a large-scale motion control system for Keller. The key advantage of CC-Link IE TSN is that it provides a converged network, allowing multiple motion axes to be controlled on the same network. Additionally, if Keller decides to add future capabilities, like a vision system, they can use the same network.

So, just to clarify, with so many motion control applications and high-speed operations, time synchronization is key. Piotr, could you explain why time-synchronized communication is so important in this context?

Piotr

Traditionally, transport operations, which don’t add value to the product, and value-adding processes like printing and surface treatment, are separate. With a time-sensitive network, you can perform these processes simultaneously, saving time. While you still need energy, you avoid wasting time. This reduces the overall system dynamics, which positively impacts the mechanical elements, reducing friction and extending their lifespan. In the printing process, you want high speed but without excessive dynamic movements. By synchronizing transport and printing, you achieve a more stable process, higher productivity, and better quality, all without unnecessary friction.

I see. So let’s dive a bit deeper into the technical challenges. Michał, could you explain what the technical challenges were that you had to solve together with Keller, especially before choosing CC-Link as the technology? 

Michał

In this case, Keller approached us with a very complex machine, primarily due to their request for a modular design. The machine is built from different parts, allowing the combination of various printing technologies to create the complete process. The challenge was to provide a solution that could control every piece of information within the mechanical system, while remaining flexible. Another key challenge, as Piotr mentioned, was achieving the necessary performance to make the machine profitable. We needed to produce at least 3,000 pieces per hour, with a target of up to 3,600 pieces per hour—a huge production volume. Additionally, tight synchronization and motion control were critical for ensuring top-quality output, as Keller manufactures machines for premium brands that demand the highest product quality. So, achieving tight synchronization, motion control, and high speed were major challenges we had to overcome.

That makes sense. I have a follow-up question about the importance of time-sensitive networking, TSN. Can we explain the “why” behind TSN in a simple way? I was thinking of an analogy: when watching a soccer game, sometimes you hear your neighbors cheer for a goal that hasn’t appeared on your screen yet, due to a delay. In technology, this kind of delay can be problematic, and TSN ensures everything happens simultaneously and predictably, avoiding such delays. This synchronization is essential for processes like the ones you mentioned, such as vision sensors and streaming data, to function smoothly. Is this analogy a good way to explain the importance of TSN?

John

Yes, that’s a pretty good analogy, Madeleine. TSN offers two key benefits in applications like this. The first, as you mentioned, is determinism.

Piotr

That’s a great example. I’d add that it’s like wanting to see your team members in real time if you were the player on the field.

John

Exactly.

Determinism ensures that every action on the machine happens at the expected moment. With Keller’s large, complex machine, it’s crucial that all the moving parts are perfectly synchronized. If they aren’t, you could risk damaging the machine or compromising product quality. Determinism guarantees that everything runs smoothly. The second key benefit of TSN, as Piotr mentioned, is the ability to run multiple operations simultaneously on the same network—what we call a converged network. So Piotr’s point about seeing all the players moving in real time is also a good metaphor for convergence.

Got it, determinism ensures machines and systems work together accurately without delays. Piotr, you mentioned earlier the components and drives on your machine. Could you give some examples of the sensors and devices you have connected to access data? Are these different axes, or what exactly do you have in the machine?

Piotr

Yes, we have many different axes working together to perform single operations. There are sensors responsible for positioning and locating products, as well as quality control systems. With live data from all these sources, we can run everything simultaneously without stopping the process to wait for information from each sensor or axis. The operation runs continuously.

So that’s why you chose CC-Link as the technology to solve this problem, right? It was the key aspect for working together?

Piotr

Yes, that was one of the main reasons.

Great. John, I’d like to learn more about CLPA as an international organization. We know that your key technology is CC-Link, specifically CC-Link IE TSN. Could you explain a bit about what you provide as an international organization?

John

Sure. We are a global organization with offices in about 10 locations worldwide, and our headquarters is in Japan. We focus on two main tasks. First, we collaborate with industrial automation vendors globally to integrate our technologies into their products. As we discussed, our key technology right now is CC-Link IE TSN. Companies worldwide use this technology in a wide variety of products, from motion control systems and sensors to vision systems and HMIs, allowing these devices to work together seamlessly in systems like Keller’s machines.
Our second job is spreading awareness about the technology. We do this through promotional activities, attending trade fairs, and engaging in other forms of outreach.

Right, so you’re spreading the word about what CC-Link IE TSN can do. Can you explain the unique selling points, or USPs, of your technology? 

John

Yes, we have two key USPs. First, we are currently the only industrial Ethernet technology offering gigabit bandwidth. As industries move toward digitalization, digital twins, and Industry 4.0, the data generated by manufacturing processes is growing exponentially. Having a gigabit network is crucial for handling this data efficiently.
Second, we offer time-sensitive networking, or TSN, which ensures the level of determinism and convergence needed for high-performance applications. Combining gigabit bandwidth with TSN provides a powerful solution to meet the increasing digitalization demands in manufacturing.

All right, thank you. Just to clarify the name: CC-Link stands for Control and Communication Link, IE is for Industrial Ethernet, and TSN is for Time-Sensitive Networking, as we discussed with the soccer analogy. Right?

John

Yeah, I guess we’ve just kept adding components as we’ve progressed. We’re a 20-year-old organization, and in the beginning, we only had CC-Link, which was a fieldbus. But that’s considered legacy technology now. As we evolved, we added industrial Ethernet and then TSN.

Got it. And Michał, from Mitsubishi’s perspective, when we talk about motion control applications, how does TSN benefit you and your components in terms of accuracy and speed?

Michał

With TSN, we can provide high network speed and bandwidth, achieving up to 32 microseconds of scan time between axes, which is incredibly fast. This tight synchronization between components allows for excellent accuracy. We’re talking about motors with 67 million pulses per rotation, giving us incredible precision. Thanks to the network, we can fully utilize this motor accuracy.
Additionally, safety is crucial in today’s industrial market, and thanks to CC-Link IE TSN, we can fully transmit all safety data to the servo drive, which can then take action, such as limiting the speed or completely stopping the system. This technology can be utilized directly within the motor. As John mentioned, this convergence allows us to handle multiple network traffic types through a single TSN Ethernet wire without compromising the performance of motion control, which requires extremely fast communication between the self-driving motion controllers.
If the network gets overloaded with unnecessary traffic, such as video feeds from vision sensors, it could affect performance. However, with TSN’s convergence and time synchronization, we can prioritize the most critical traffic—motion and safety—ensuring that performance isn’t lost, which is especially crucial for motion control.

Thank you. So, high accuracy is critical, and you’re emphasizing the network design with various data types flowing through. It’s also important to include security in this, right?

Michał

Exactly. One more point: we’re dealing with a large number of drives. In the Keller application, we synchronized 65 to 70 drives, but with TSN, we can synchronize up to 250 axes or more with tight precision.

Thanks for that addition. I have a question for John. There’s this market situation with various protocols—like Profinet, EtherCAT, and others. You’re working with Mitsubishi, but also with other manufacturers like Festo, ifm, and SICK. How does everyone collaborate in this space? 

John

Currently, the CLPA has 10 key board members, including companies like Mitsubishi Electric, as well as others like Balluff, Cognex, and Cisco. Beyond that, we have around 400 companies that manufacture products using our technology. This includes major players in the industrial automation industry, such as Festo, ABB, and many others.
It’s an interesting situation because, while we collaborate with these companies to integrate our technology, they also work with other technologies. In the end, it’s a win-win for customers—they have a broad range of technologies to choose from, and we get to work with some of the best companies in the industry to ensure their products support our technology. So, ultimately, it works out for everyone.

That’s great. To summarize, we’ve learned about Keller’s business challenges, including the need for different types of machines and tooling, the ability to reconfigure and add new features, and how operators can leverage data for quality management. The technology from CC-Link Partner Association enables all of this, right? So it provides the foundation for customers to set up their use cases and visions, now and in the future.

John

Exactly. Keller is a great example of a company using our technology in their machines, supported by products from Mitsubishi. But we work across many industries—consumer electronics, automotive, material handling, semiconductor, food and beverage, and more. So far, over 100 major global corporations have adopted CC-Link IE TSN technology, making it widely accepted across various sectors.

You also have many reference stories, which I’ll link in the show notes. If you’re listening and wondering how to get involved, John, can you explain how someone can become a partner of your association?

John

It’s very simple. You can contact us through our website via the email partners@eu.cc-link.org or reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. Just look for John Browett, and we’d be happy to discuss how we can work together.

I’ll include both links in the show notes. Lastly, do you have any experiences from this project that you’d like to share with the audience? Piotr, would you like to share something from your practical experience?

Piotr

Yes, this is very advanced, future-ready technology that will make your life easier. Our project was highly innovative, and finding the right partner was crucial. We’ve been working with Mitsubishi for 12 years, and it’s a strategic partnership built on trust. My advice is to find the right partner—it’s as important as the technology itself.

Exactly. You mentioned earlier the turbulent and ever-changing ecosystem your customers face, so having a trusted partner for both now and the future is essential. Do you have any plans for new technologies or innovations in your machines, like the vision sensor you mentioned earlier?

Piotr

Yes, vision sensors will be used for quality control, but they’re also highly useful in positioning systems and product recognition, making the setup process easier. To ensure the setup is correct, we’re planning to develop new modules for typical applications, such as new printing, assembly, and packaging technologies. The system’s capacity allows us to think ahead without any current limitations.

Thank you! With that, I’ll wrap up the session for today. I still have many questions, but maybe we can save those for a follow-up. A big thank you to all three of you! It’s been fantastic to see how CC-Link IE TSN is driving innovation in Keller’s industrial printing technology, and how Keller, as a leading OEM, is leveraging this technology to scale and set up for future use cases. I learned so much today and thank you for that! Now, I’ll hand it over to you for the last word.

John

Yes, just one final comment. If anyone is curious to see how Keller’s machine looks and works, we made a great video with Piotr and Michał showcasing the whole system. You can find it on our YouTube channel—it gives you a good idea of how the machine operates.

Michał

Exactly. I really encourage you to watch it. The machine itself is amazing, not just for the solutions behind it, but also from a mechanical perspective. It’s really impressive, so I hope you find it exciting. Thank you!

Piotr

I would summarize by saying: productivity, flexibility, modularity, and safety. These are the main business advantages we delivered to our customers through this partnership. Thank you for that.

Thank you, and have a great rest of the week. Bye!

Piotr

Thank you. Bye.

Michał

Thank you. Bye.

John

Thank you. Bye.