Smart wire remover ‘an industry first’

German recycling tech company Stadler unveiled its ‘groundbreaking’ WireX automated bale wire remover at the IFAT trade show in Munich.

Rok Mežič, head of development at Stadler, told an enthusiastic crowd how this new machine is capable of dewiring crosswired bales in a single pass. ‘This is an industry first,’ he notes.

The WireX uses specially designed wire detection and bale measurement systems, which rely on AI and sensor technology to determine if the bale is single- or double-wired.

This fully automates and speeds up the dewiring process, achieving an outstanding capacity of up to 60 bales/h (single-wired).

Future-proof

Automated and digital solutions is a huge part of Stadler’s vision for the future, according to company ceo Willi Stadler. He took IFAT as the golden opportunity to introduce his daughter, Julia Stadler, as the new Chief Digital Solutions.

Both agree that Stadler and other tech providers have an important role to play in helping to advance the circular economy. Further developing smart systems and digital tools is key towards reaching this goal, in tandem with pursuing new research projects.

‘We can see the industry is headed in the right direction,’ says Willi Stadler. ‘Now is the time to keep pushing so we can reach the next phase in the recycling evolution.’

Mining talent

‘It’s vital to find and train new recycling technology talent,’ underlines Julia Stadler when the topic of the next generation comes up. ‘That’s why we are eager to offer internships to much-needed engineers year after year.’ The result is Stadler Academy, which is a collaboration with seven universities across Germany and Austria.

This includes the Summer School project with Aachen University, which also counts on the support of Lindner Recyclingtech, Tomra Sorting and Steinert. ‘The great thing is that we all complement each other,’ she says. ‘We’re not competitors fighting for hires.’

Instead, students work together in teams, supervised by industry leaders. Doing so allows them to expand their unique skillset while targeting key themes that interest them, such as robotic sorting and big data.

‘We’ve had very good results,’ she adds. ‘The youngsters are super driven and are equipped with tonnes of bold, new ideas. We give them the space to experiment and learn from their mistakes. Typically, at least one person stays with us once they’ve graduated. This benefits our company and the recycling sector as a whole!’