FEATURE Industry 4.0 & Smart Factories y The
benefi ts of digitalisation
Industrial automation specialist Festo has developed a machine to demonstrate the benefits of digitalisation in manufacturing and to attract greater investment in Industry 4.0
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 an engineer and operations manager. ‘The Productivity Master’, a 5m-long production line developed by Festo, is intended to provide a means of bringing Industry 4.0 ideas into reality. The Productivity Master consists of
fi ve individual cells that can be replaced with diff erent functions. This introduces the challenge of not only communication between automation equipment within a cell, but also 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 fi nal connections using OPC-UA directly to the cloud via the Festo IoT gateway. Motion 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 VTEM Motion Terminal from Festo. 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. 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 it to the recipient from its buff er storage location. Many typical machine functions can be seen throughout the process, including pick and place, component fl ipping, rotation functions, rotary table control, vacuum and gripper handling, and more.
Ideal showcase The Productivity Master is an ideal showcase to demonstrate the advantages of the virtual world on a physical machine. The machine operates a fully automated ‘lot size one’ process, allowing orders for USB memory sticks to be fulfi lled online from anywhere in the world, producing a
The 5m-long Productivity Master production line from Festo
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 on a Festo Vision Sensor on an exhibition stand. The USB stick will then be 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 utilises the latest digital maintenance manager for production managers and system operators. Smartenance from Festo provides maintenance engineers with a clear schedule and evaluation for the Productivity Master’s maintenance and off ers a fast and easy transition to digital maintenance.
The system consists of two parts: a mobile maintenance schedule in the form of an app for smartphones and tablets on the shop fl oor, and a web browser interface for managing and documenting the maintenance tasks in the offi ce. Operators 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. “There is a real need to fi nd ways of making Industry 4.0 and digitalisation concepts far more understandable and accessible if we are to encourage the levels of investment required to equip our factories for the future,” said Steve Sands, Head of Global Product Management at Festo GB.
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Buffer storage – USBs can be called from the buffer station by scanning
18 September 2020 | Automation
Festo
www.festo.com
automationmagazine.co.uk
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