System Insights Featured in Major Trade Publication
System Insights is featured in the article by Mark Albert, Editor in Chief of Modern Machine Shop about MTConnect. MTConnect Is For Real.
MTConnect Is For Real
Introduced at IMTS 2008, this communications protocol for CNC machines and other manufacturing equipment is already helping shops and plants implement effective machine monitoring systems. Although these “early adopters” are motivated by the long-term promise of enterprise-wide efficiency gains, their experience with pilot projects shows that benefits derived in the short term are substantial and worthwhile.
If you haven’t already, please read the great article by Mark Albert, Editor in Chief of Modern Machine Shop. It give a very thorough overview of the intentions and achievements of the MTConnect standard and how System Insights is contributing to make it all happen. It also give a overview of our products and services and how MTConnect and System Insights have shown early successes in the real world.
(Some quotes):
The two pilot projects, however, had significant differences that highlight further aspects of MTConnect’s value to an end user. The most striking is the involvement of a third-party software application developer. Although Remmele is a remarkably capable contract manufacturing company and a sizable one (with four facilities and about 500 employees), it does not have the extensive information technology resources that GE Aviation does. To expedite the MTConnect pilot implementation, Remmele brought on board System Insights, Inc. (Berkeley, California), a software development company recently founded by Will Sobel and Athulan Vijayaraghavan, who were members of the team that created the original MTConnect specification for AMT. This step does not limit the company’s options, however. Bill Blomquist, the administrator of Remmele’s pilot project, explains: “The beauty of MTConnect is that data always remains in a neutral format. With MTConnect, we are not tied to one software developer or application vendor.” Remmele works with several software providers whose applications are likely to benefit from access to machine tool performance data, he says. A neutral data format preserves flexibility in this multi-vendor environment.
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Implementing MTConnect on the rotary transfer machine required a collaborative effort between the specialists at Hydromat (St. Louis, Missouri) and System Insights. In this case, Tom Hansen, general manager of electrical engineering at Hydromat, developed the MTConnect adapter. It resides on a PC connected to the central processing unit that coordinates the independently controlled machining paths at each station. By design, this adapter is configured to select only certain types of data for MTConnect formatting. It was determined that the adapter would pass alarm messages, cycle starts and cycle stops (with their time stamps) from all machining stations. It would also pass true position feedback from the first station, where mechanical accuracy is established. The adapter must also tag data according to the station that originates it. Likewise, the adapter recognizes which station has a bar feeder, parts catcher or other peripheral device because alarm messages related to these devices are also passed to the MTConnect agent. Remmele plans to install a temperature sensor on this machine’s oil chiller to be monitored via MTConnect.
Mr. Vijayaraghavan, CTO at System Insights, configured the MTConnect agent to ensure that data passed by the adapter is compliant with the MTConnect standard and can be retrieved by the machine monitoring system. The application software developed by System Insights was customized to suit Remmele’s specifications for the pilot project. This software organizes and analyzes MTConnect data from both the rotary transfer machine and the five-axis machining center.
The machining center, a Toyoda FA630, is located at the company’s aerospace and defense division in Big Lake, Minnesota. This machine is dedicated to large, complex workpieces for commercial and military aircraft. Whereas complete parts drop off the rotary transfer machine in seconds, workpieces processed on the HMC typically require as many as six hours of continuous machine time. System Insights developed the MTConnect adapter and configured the agent for this machine, which is equipped with a Fanuc CNC.
Remmele’s pilot project commenced in earnest in April 2009, and by August, the adapters, agents and machine monitoring application were operating.
A look at the machine monitoring application created for Remmele brings out some important observations. As noted earlier, MTConnect data is “fed into” this application from the machine tool controller via the MTConnect agent. The application, in turn, “digests” the data for the user’s consumption. The MTConnect standard does not address this process in any way. System Insights developed the monitoring system so that data could be organized and presented in a way suitable to support different types of visualization and analysis. For example, Remmele finds it very valuable to track data from the transfer machine against targets set in the company’s ERP system. In contrast, data from the HMC helps the company track multiple operations against targets set in the process plan for each part number. As Will Sobel, CEO of System Insights, explains, “Data about machine performance has to be organized and presented in ways that specific users can interpret and use to take action. These needs can be very different depending on the role of the person in the organization. The challenge is to turn data into information and make it valuable to the user.”
