Increased efficiency with piaLineControllers and PIA Industrial App Suite
PIA Fact Check
- Central source of information: real-time data on quantities, messages, cycle times, and availabilities
- Effective monitoring: daily analysis of fault messages and downtimes
- Quality improvement: Efficient curve visualization and statistical data for analysis
- PIA apps used: piaLineController, piaVisibility, piaOptimum, piaOEETracker, piaAnalyze
Flexible control system: the customer's requirements
The customer sought a control system that would provide both flexible order management and ensure the flow of components through the system. In addition, material traceability had to be guaranteed, and the quality data had to be fully documented via the system. Furthermore, it was a matter of course for the customer that recipe management should be carried out via the control system. At the start of the project, the customer was still undecided as to whether and which rework scenarios would be required. One important requirement was the connection to the customer's MES. Another request was to integrate the software into the existing authentication system using a chip card.
Increased efficiency with the piaLineController
Even during the commissioning phase, the flexible flow control of the components through the system facilitated the necessary test runs. Thanks to the rework functionality, components could be easily dismantled and fed back into the system - without any adjustments to the PLC program. This simplified the functional and system tests considerably and reduced the number of test parts required, which the customer had to provide.
Integrated material management makes it much easier to record batches. It not only minimizes the initial effort required for integration, but also offers the customer additional savings for future conversions. The same applies to component flow control (workflow) and reworking: the customer benefits from the flexibility and intuitive configuration of the system. The piaLineController was also convincing in terms of the evaluation of product data. Efficient curve displays of measured values and the provision of statistical data provide the quality department with valuable tools for analyzing and improving quality. The connection to the customer's MES via the piaLineController was implemented efficiently and quickly - an aspect that was expressly praised by the customer.
Effective analysis and monitoring with the PIA Industrial App Suite
From the very first sample part productions, the customer requested cycle time evaluations of each station in order to tackle the issue as early as possible. With PIA Optimum - which is a central component of the PIA Industrial App Suite - the cycle time could be easily provided to the customer live on the system and also as a report. For further comparison, the test runs were also recorded as reference periods with the help of the cycle time statistics, and before-and-after comparisons of the cycle time are thus easily possible at any time. The combined use of piaLineController and the various applications from PIA IAS, the PIA app offering, also provides the customer with further analyses via piaAnalyze. In particular, evaluations such as the influence of batches on the results or correlations of data between the stations represent valuable extensions for quality considerations.
Production managers and employees were particularly impressed by piaVisibility as an additional live monitoring tool for the system. The central display of active messages and machine statuses based on the system layout was particularly impressive. The finished reports can also be used for the existing shop floor meetings.
Another important requirement in the connection to the MES was the transmission of the HMI messages that occurred. With the help of our piaWorkflow, it was easy to implement an extension tailored to the customer interface. The customer was pleasantly surprised that the standardized, prepared PIA solution for message recording enabled accurate transmission to the MES in terms of time and content.
