#Transparency #RemoteMaintenance #ConditionMonitoring
Transparency through remote maintenance creates advantages
„The high level of information allows us to define and show exactly how much energy is consumed in the production of an individual item. This means that in the future we will be able to include the exact energy costs in the overall calculation instead of a simple mark-up. Especially with rising energy costs, this is a clear advantage for us. Further, our customers also benefit from the transparency.“
Marcel Geisen
Technical Coordinator Production
SMC Deutschland GmbH
SMC Deutschland GmbH, based in Egelsbach near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is a leading manufacturer, partner and solution provider for pneumatic and electrical automation technology. SMC has been active on the German market since 1978 in various sectors such as the automotive, electrical, medical, packaging and food industries as well as machine tool manufacturing.
Cost and competitive pressures require production optimisation
Rising energy prices are increasingly becoming a challenge for the industry. At the same time, machine status is also an aspect that comes more into focus with a view to achieve sustainable, cost-optimised and thus competitive production. Machine and plant operators increasingly need information on production processes, operating states and the energy consumption of their machines. This is the only way to meet the growing challenges to manufacturing efficiently. Creating a high level of transparency is therefore the be-all and end-all of modern production – not only for greenfield, but especially for brownfield plants.
Networking and remote maintenance with industrial data communication
Together with INSYS icom, SMC Deutschland GmbH has developed a solution to collect and evaluate data from its CNC machines using IoT technologies. SMC uses its own EX600 fieldbus system for data acquisition. The MRX3 LAN router was chosen to integrate the measuring points into a cloud system. Thus, a network was established that is disconnected from SMC’s own network structure and transmits the data securely via Modbus – protected by the security functions of the INSYS firmware icom OS. A second Ethernet connection ensures connectivity with the SMC network, which is used to access the Internet and transmit the data to the cloud server via MQTT. Using the icom Data Suite, data is transmitted to SMC’s cloud and evaluated.
Energy efficiency through data collection and transmission
The interaction of data collection, data transmission via MRX3 LAN router from INSYS icom and data display via the cloud provides a clear overview of the energy consumption of individual machines. Thus, clear indicators of leakage or unnecessary consumption can be simply shown and set to trigger an automatic alarm to bring immediate attention. The data collection also enables a precise view of the machine running time – an indicator of the condition of a machine. In this way, especially set-up and maintenance times can be optimised.
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