FEATURE INDUSTRY 4.0/IIOT BECOME A MASTER OF INDUSTRY 4.0 CONCEPTS
How can you demonstrate ROI for an Industry 4.0 concept and secure the funding to make it a reality? Industrial automation specialist Festo believes it may have a solution, and shows how future digitalisation concepts can be applied today
T
he need to give assurance to procurement teams and the C-suite
that their investment in Industry 4.0 and digitalisation is not just a leap of faith but a sound business decision is a practical dilemma for many a process or control engineer. With few Industry 4.0 factories in existence as yet, demonstrating the benefits of digitalisation in one place and from beginning to end is very difficult. Industrial automation specialist Festo
has taken steps to address this problem by developing a 5m long production line – ‘The Productivity Master’ – that attempts to bring often abstract ideas into reality (see box below) It represents a real production environment, in which all the elements of connectivity can be demonstrated from the workpiece to the cloud: including digital twins, multiple communication networking, big data and online cloud diagnostics.
INDUSTRY 4.0 IN PRACTICE The chosen demonstration application contains representative tasks that are easily transferred into other industrial applications. The Productivity Master takes blank USB memory sticks from typical cassettes and prints and places labels on both sides of the stick. It then loads a custom set of data on the stick and distributes the stick to the recipient from its buffer storage location. Many typical machine functions can be
seen throughout the process, such as: • Pick and place • Component flipping • Rotation functions • Rotary table control • Vacuum and gripper handling • Typical label printing and placement
THE PRODUCTIVITY MASTER - BRINGING IDEAS TO LIFE
The Productivity Master is 5m long and constructed of five individual cells that can be replaced with different functions. This introduces the challenge of not just communication between automation equipment in a cell, but also the communication between discreet cells. Each cell utilises a Festo CPX-E motion controller as the individual cell control, communicating cyclic data to Festo servo drives, pneumatic valve terminals and sensors via EtherCAT and IO Link. In turn, each cell communicates along the machine using Ethernet, with the final connections using OPC-UA directly to the cloud via the Festo IoT gateway. Motion in modern automation is provided by both electrical and pneumatic means. The Productivity
Master represents this mix with low voltage and extra low voltage drives, seamlessly working closely with traditional valve terminals and the innovative intelligent pneumatic Motion Terminal from Festo, the VTEM. In all aspects of automation, the choice of technology is seamless from both pneumatic and electric grippers to ball screw and pneumatic mini slide systems.
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• Magazine indexing • Storage location logging • Vision sensing • Orientation checking and placement • Component transfer
The Productivity Master is 5m long and constructed of five individual cells that can be replaced with different functions
Seamless connectivity is achieved using Festo CMMT-AS servo drives
The machine operates a fully
automated ‘lot size one’ process, allowing orders for USB memory sticks to be fulfilled online from anywhere in the world, producing a customised QR code for the personalised stick. The user can then redeem their order from the cloud, via the screen or by scanning their QR code. The USB stick is produced immediately, printed with the users’ personal message, loaded with
personalised data and stored, ready
to be called off by a second scan of the code.
The Productivity Master also utilises the
latest digital technology to provide maintenance engineers with a clear schedule and offers a fast and easy transition to digital maintenance, or Smartenance. The system consists of two parts: a mobile maintenance schedule in the form of an app for smartphones and tablets on the shop floor, and a web browser interface for managing and documenting the maintenance tasks in the office. Smartenance is quick and easy for anyone to install and operate and provides a simple and cost-effective introduction to digitalisation. By taking advantage of Festo
Buffer storage – USBs can be called from the buffer station by scanning the QR code
Dashboards in the cloud, users can immediately gain access to the most important data generated by the machine: such as temperature, current and speeds of servos, analogue and digital signals and errors. Air pressure and air consumption can also be monitored and changes logged, enabling prediction of potential problems in the future. Data can be accessed anywhere in the world and both live and historical data can be viewed without any programming or set up.
COMBINING TECHNOLOGIES There is a real need to find ways of making Industry 4.0 and digitalisation concepts more understandable and accessible if we are to encourage the levels of investment required to equip our factories for the future. Festo’s Productivity Master demonstrates just how many different technologies are already available and how they can be combined to achieve major improvements in automation, operations and maintenance. This makes it easier for all those involved in the decision-making process to associate Industry 4.0 and digitalisation to real life and therefore see how future digitalisation principles can be applied today.
Festo
www.festo.com/virtualexhibition
SEPTEMBER 2020 | PROCESS & CONTROL / PROCESS&CONTROL
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