What Shops Want While every machine shop manager wants to boost productivity, most manufacturing operations actually overestimate machining effi ciency, notes McPhail. Without effective shop-fl oor data monitor- ing, they’re essentially operating in the dark. “They’re looking to know what they don’t know,” McPhail said of those that add machine data-monitoring systems. “When you ask most people where they think their effi ciency is, the actual number is really quite differ- ent. There is a perception-reality disconnect.”
added. “But there are some that are going to be overwhelmed with some of this, so we try to get to the basics.” The TechSolve MTConnect-compliant Viz line of shop-fl oor monitoring products include the more full-featured ShopViz, and the MiniViz an- nounced at the MTConnect Conference in April. The MiniViz solution is more limited in scope
After installing the MERLIN MES system from Memex Automation, Mazak’s machine tool manufacturing facility in Florence, KY, saw a 42% improvement in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and 100 hours of reduced operator overtime per month.
Photo courtesy Mazak Corp.
A common refrain among industry quality gurus and data management suppliers is: “You can’t improve what you can’t measure.” According to many industry estimates, only about 3% of machine tools today are monitored, leaving a huge chunk of the industry without a true statistical view of their manufacturing operations. “I frankly think that’s an overestimation,” said Ron Pieper, manager, VizProd- ucts, for manufacturing consulting fi rm TechSolve Inc. (Cincinnati). “The forward lookers are right in the assessment of what could be. The reality is we just need more connections.” Simpler, less-expensive monitoring tools are now
available, leveraging the established protocols to make installation at shops easier. “When I go into a company, I get the guys that are bought in,” Pieper
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and it’s designed to be more of an introductory data- monitoring tool, Pieper said. Automated collection of two or three pieces of data from each machine is a good start in many cases, Pieper added, noting that part of the battle is changing the culture. “There’s shops out there that are still running tapes and us- ing fl oppy disks,” he said. More people than ever are looking to automate their process- es, said Greg Mercurio, president of Shop Floor Automations Inc. (La Mesa, CA), a reseller of Predator Software’s manufacturing data collection suite and of the cloud- based Scytec data monitoring solution. “Time is money, and now there’s more in-process probing and automatic collection of data,” he add. “The key is everything is done at the machine tool.” The MTConnect protocol is a great solution, Mercurio noted, but he said it will take some time to become more fully accepted in the
industry. “The biggest problem is that the machine builders haven’t fully embraced it,” said Mercurio, adding that even some of the machine builders that have endorsed MTConnect don’t promote the protocol as much as they could. “In two years, I think people are going to understand what MTConnect is and we’ll see more people embracing it. The chal- lenge is educating people about it.” Using either the Scytec or Predator solutions, cus- tomers can immediately start collecting data on the status of their machines, with the systems automati- cally telling shop managers what they need to know about part counts, cycle time, program number, and many other key variables, Mercurio said. “The new trend is for PCs on the shop fl oor and leveraging paperless manufacturing solutions,” he added. “The
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