The Matrix 4.


What could be mistaken for a creation of a mad scientist is actually an
industry game changer. At the Sandvik company Seco, the application of data
matrix codes on its products is improving traceability and boosting
sustainability goals.

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At the Seco Innovation Laboratory in Fagersta, Sweden, R&D technician Jan
Gravningsbråten, could easily be mistaken for a mad scientist, surrounded by
blinking red lasers, trays of inserts under observation, diagnostic equipment
and countless other measuring devices, all in aid of his ongoing work with
data matrix codes.
 “This is a game changer,” says Jan
Gravningsbråten, head of R&D at Seco Tools. “It’s about optimizing the whole business.”
Gravningsbråten’s current work came out of a “eureka” moment three years
ago, when he had the idea that if data matrix codes could be laser-etched
onto every single insert and holding tool produced by Seco – 50 million or so a
year – the advantages for the business would be incalculable in terms of
traceability and sustainability throughout a product’s entire life cycle. Fast-
forward three years and his idea has become reality for Seco’s popular Turbo
16 family of square holder cutters.

In true R&D fashion

With the early support of Sina Vosough, Seco’s Vice President of R&D, who
greenlighted Gravningsbråten’s idea, he and his R&D colleagues set to work
developing a patented printable data matrix code to apply to the Turbo 16
square holder cutters. Additionally, the team developed internal and external
smartphone apps to read these codes.

We now have full traceability of each and every Turbo

16 piece.
Like the more familiar QR code, a data matrix is a square two-dimensional
code that, once it is etched onto a free surface on an insert or holding tool, is
easily read by lasers and smartphone cameras. Unlike more traditional bar
codes, data matrix codes are more versatile and can contain more pertinent
information about the specific part.
 Unlike more traditional bar codes, data matrix codes are more
versatile and can contain more pertinent information about the specific part, in this case inserts.
Applying these codes onto inserts and tools was a trial-and-error process,
Gravningsbråten admits, and he is careful not to reveal the now-patented
“secret sauce” behind the process. But, he says, guaranteeing readability after
normal wear and tear at a customer site was one of the challenges.

Gravningsbråten chose a series of 10 billion numbers to be represented by

the codes. “That’s 120 years’ worth of production,” he says. Each number was
assigned properties regarding material grades, which is important for
recycling, as well as where, how and when the piece was manufactured.

Full traceability
As a demonstration Gravningsbråten opens the Seco “How R U” internal app
on his smartphone. By scanning/photographing the data matrix code on an
insert – some are only 1.2 millimeters wide – Gravningsbråten can retrieve
CAD drawings of the piece and find out how much electricity was consumed
during its production, its relevant CO 2 emissions and even where in the
sintering oven it was placed, as this plays a minuscule yet important role in
the piece’s final performance.
The knowledge about each specific product is so detailed that customers can
also access pertinent information for their own processes via the Seco
Assistant app.
“We now have full traceability of each and every Turbo 16 piece in our
production and throughout its life cycle,” says Gravningsbråten. “This was not
the case before – quite the opposite, in fact.”

He explains that previously production was analyzed by the batch, and if there
was something wrong, the whole batch would have to be scrapped, wasting
valuable resources along the way.

But we now have the tools to fully engage in this

circular economy
“We had no idea,” says Gravningsbråten, who estimates that a lot of a lot of
resources are now saved in the production process each year because of the
full traceability the data matrix codes offer. “In other words,” he says, “a
production failure can now be rooted out at the individual level and this data
can be fed back into the R&D process.”

R&D technician Jan Gravningsbråten

The Seco team is currently considering a number of other improvements,
such as the recycling of inserts. With the help of these data matrix codes,
inserts and their different metal compounds can be quickly sorted into
respective types – chrome, titanium, cobalt, carbides and so on – just by
scanning the codes.

“Like a coin separation machine at a bank, this process was not cost-effective
previously,” says Gravningsbråten. “But we now have the tools to fully engage
in this circular economy, and with all this traceability we are now uniquely
poised to engage in what people are calling Industry 4.0. The next step is to
roll it out to other product families.”