Page 41 - MetalForming-Apr-2018-issue

applications come to mind first— smart thermostats, video doorbells, Amazon Echo, etc. Manufacturers may feel pressure to start bringing IoT devices into their plants—inno- vate or risk falling behind.
According to Plex Systems’ Fos- ter, while the opportunity to use the latest connected devices can be exciting, manufacturers must first plan, measure and critically evaluate any technology deploy- ment, and ensure that the new technology will improve efficiency, quality or safety.
Fabrication: IoT
100% 80%
60%
40%
20% 0%
7%
23%
17%
17% 3%
4%
10%
4%
4%
■ Low Override
■ Unknown Downtime ■ Planned Downtime ■ Unplanned Downtime
■ Normal Cycle
13%
6%
9%
6%
50%
12%
54%
45%
51%
37%
44%
51%
27%
8%
13%
25%
1%
32%
2%
24%
7%
44%
2%
39%
7%
“With nearly 600 customers run- ning close to 2000 plants with the Plex Manufacturing Cloud,” Foster says, “I see many manufacturers around the world using technolo- gies that combine the physical and digital to disrupt how they make things. The most innovative leverage the cloud for their core systems—what we call a system of record. And, because the economics of cloud are so much better, even small organizations can deploy ERP and MES systems previously only available to the biggest companies. The cloud also changes the scope and impact of ERP and MES because it allows manufacturers to simply and inexpensively connect devices, systems, people, machines and organizations.”
Connected devices allow manufac- turers to gain incredible insights direct- ly from the shop floor, to automate business processes and track data in ways that weren’t conceivable a few years ago. These new connected devices, Fos- ter explains, can reveal, for example, the performance of a wire-EDM machine based on the quality of cuts. They can show a shift’s efficiency by tabulating how quickly labels are pro- duced. And they can allow plant man- agers to see and repair broken machines from their living rooms.
“Better connectivity adds up to more than better process automation,” Foster adds. “By collecting data from all of these new devices into a centralized hub, companies can consolidate, parse, analyze and serve up relevant infor- mation on the shop floor, and share it
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MetalForming/April 2018 39
Fig. 1—This OEE graph charts downtime causes for seven machines in a plant, and illustrates how chaotic a plant floor can become. All of the machines in the example have at least 37-percent unexplained downtime. Such poor performance might become evident only after initiating a real-time monitoring pilot.
with executives. Now, each new machine, tablet or any other device on the network becomes a participant in an efficient process, and a data source. And, the cloud makes it simple and inexpensive to add new devices or swap them out as needs change.”
As a case study in how metalformers leverage IoT, Foster references MFC Netform, Shelby Township, MI, a man- ufacturer of powertrain components for automotive and agricultural appli- cations. MFC implemented a cloud ERP system to improve quality and reduce scrap, and then started lever- aging IoT to connect its people, equip- ment and processes to the cloud.
“MFC’s machine-vision inspection system automatically rejects any part that doesn’t meet quality specifica- tions,” Foster explains. “The system pulls the accumulated value of the scrapped part from the ERP system and multiplies it by the number of scrapped units. This allows an operator to quantify the actual value of the scrap, rather than just seeing a pile of parts in a bin.”
Because cloud ERP connects MFC’s entire enterprise, users can access all machine-tabulated information and any related reporting. The company can automatically correlate shop-floor
machine-inspection results to product values to produce accurate scrap costs.
Mistake Proofing with Metrics
Echoing Foster’s perspectives, IQMS’s Columbus notes that all man- ufacturers have the potential to improve production efficiency and quality by adopting real-time moni- toring, including IoT-based sensors and systems, into their production workflows.
“And,” he says, “it can be done with- out massive investments.”
With great volumes of data comes great responsibility. Strip away the hype, Columbus says, surrounding real-time monitoring and IoT in man- ufacturing and all that’s left are the core metrics and key performance indi- cators (KPIs) that define and predict customer satisfaction and quality.
“Taking on the challenge of mistake- proofing metalforming and fabrication plants will fail without a plan,” Colum- bus stresses. “Trying to fire-fight a series of smaller symptoms of a much larger quality, compliance or workflow process also leads to failure. Without a series of clear-cut goals, the data collected are for the most part meaningless.”
Referencing the accompanying graphic (Fig. 1), Columbus illustrates