factory fl oor is going digital and embracing wireless, leveraging Windows tablets, iPads and thin clients, which offer lower cost of ownership, fl exibility and ease of deployment. With this new trend comes software to manage, control, view and deliver a com- plete ‘digital package’ to the shop fl oor for the opera- tor to streamline the process. This provides complete revision control to shop fl oor.”
Real-Time Data Delivery For shops looking to improve performance, get- ting data off the factory fl oor in real time is critical. “Real-time information is probably the Holy Grail of manufacturing,” said Memex’s McPhail. In many cases of smaller shops, an operation with only fi ve or so ma- chines can view performance through the manager’s window, he said, while larger operations require an automated solution. “It’s important that the company has a scorecard,” he said. “Without having a baseline, how do you know you’re improving?” A typical Memex customer has 12 or more
machines, he added, making that type of opera- tion more diffi cult to monitor without an automated system. Monitoring systems now are fairly nominal in cost at about $3000–$5000 per machine installed, McPhail noted, and they typically pay themselves off quickly with performance improvements that easily outweigh installation costs. At machine tool builder Mazak Corp.’s Florence, KY, plant that builds multitasking and fi ve-axis turn-
ing and milling machines, installing MERLIN helped the plant improve OEE by 42%, reduced operator overtime by 100 hours per month, and returned 400 hours per month of previously outsourced work to the factory. “Capacity utilization is probably the lowest- hanging fruit in the plant,” McPhail stated. “The reality is you can take the information, put it through some pretty simple things and get improvements.” These metrics include OEE, which is probably the most all- encompassing, McPhail said, and machine utilization, of which achieving 85% is considered world-class. Whether a shop is large or small, automating with real-time delivery of shop-fl oor data is key. “One of the trends obviously is to try to get your data as ac- curate, as timely, and as unbiased as possible,” said Jim Finnerty, product manager, ShopFloorConnect, at Wintriss Controls (Acton, MA). “A lot of the shop fl oor data—when was the machine running, when was it not running, how many scrap parts did you have, how many good parts were produced over a given time period—has to be manually entered. And oftentimes, it’s manually entered by the very people that are going to be judged on the results of that data. Even if it’s not your fault, nobody wants to be the low production guy for that shift.” Working primarily with fabrication shops in the metalforming market, Wintriss developed its Shop- FloorConnect software that teams with the Shop- FloorConnect Machine Interface (SMI), a simple touchscreen operator terminal that along with the
The Memex MERLIN system’s operator portal shows a wide array of key real-time plant-fl oor operational metrics that help manufacturers improve factory productivity.
Image courtesy Memex Automation
AdvancedManufacturing.org SS25
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172