Improving Manufacturing Productivity by Machine Interconnection – New Technical Paper

MIDDLEWICH, U.K. - March 17, 2015 - PRLog -- Achieving higher productivity, waste reduction, transparency in operations and lean manufacturing are common goals for forward looking businesses. At the workshop level this demands machine interconnection within a manufacturing execution systems (MES), a process that is undermined when machine connections cannot be completed successfully within a realistic time frame. Forcam, specialist factory shop floor software developer, has produced a paper that explores how to overcome these difficulties. This is based on their experience connecting over 60,000 machine tools and plant items via its MES solution, Factory Framework.

There are many reasons for machine connection failure. Machine tool and other process equipment manufacturers have used diverse machine monitoring and communication systems. Increasingly, leading manufacturers such as Heidenheim, Siemens and Fanuc have introduce standardised communication protocols for current machines that enable interconnection to the cloud. Legacy equipment, however, may use obsolete data collection and communication software making the aggregation and processing of data in a consistent format difficult.

Powerful plug-ins, customised for the machine control and communication system, are used by Forcam to overcome these problems. These enable signals relating to many aspects of machine operation such as alarms, tool allocation and the transmission of NC files to be streamed with absolute accuracy. Forcam’s managing director in the UK, Andrew Steele, explained, “MES can only be fully effective when they encompass the entire shop with no exclusions for legacy or hard-to-connect machines. Production and financial management need to have a real-time transparent view of operations to correct problems and make meaningful decisions. Where the MES feeds this production data into the ERP system, this accuracy provides the basis for sound enterprise wide decision making and planning.”

Company IT teams, or smaller MES suppliers, face particular challenges that can give rise to long delays achieving complete networking. Lacking the library of plugins and experience of large scale system integration, some vendors will resort to the use of thirdparty communication software, incurring high licence fees and imposing an on-going additional cost, Forcam warn.

Engineers wishing to access a PDF version of the Forcam paper can download it from http://www.forcam.com/index.php?id=299.

Forcam will be happy to provide further advice on any aspect of MES implementation. The company will be exhibiting at the Hannover Fair April 13-17, Hall 7 Stand A11.


More Information

United Kingdom
Andrew Steele, UK Managing Director, Tel. 01606 833 837
E-mail: info@forcam.co.uk Web: forcam.co.uk
FORCAM UK, 6.1 Verity Court, Pochin Way, Middlewich, Cheshire, CW12 0GW

Germany
Vincent Post, International Marketing / PR Manager, Tel. +49 (0)751 / 36669 – 826
E-mail: Vincent.post@forcam.com Web: forcam.com
FORCAM GmbH, An der Bleicherei 15, D-88214 Ravensburg, Germany

Images at: www.ainsmag.co.uk/fo255/5381fo1a-manufacturing-machine-interconnection.htm