The Industry 4.0 is a transversal process that makes industrial production entirely automated and interconnected: machinery, people and devices communicate / talk each other for an intelligent management system.
allow Machine-to-Machine talking( M2M), reading information from the memory of the machine or plant CPUs, integrating them with data collected from the surrounding environment and means for Internet of Things( IoT) communication. Factory information could be stored in the Cloud and could be retrieved everywhere or from any personal device in order to have real-time data, production data, maintenance status, and alarms on-the-go.
CN: Something immediately available to an industrial customer? AM: Sure, I can give you some examples of applications developed, fully tested and available by Automata:
· F3 Net: an intelligent system that acquires, collects, stores, manages and processes in real time a large number of information and events, making them available even on mobile devices.
· Cloud service: it collects and manages machine information and makes it available remotely, in real time and at different levels such as Apps and web dashboards.
· Smart Robot: it provides high flexibility in the robot path ' s programming activity, according to production requirements of the supply chain, either by operators or automatically.
· EDEA: a system developed to satisfy the electricity energy requirements, in terms of audit and analysis, allowing to know and keep under control the consumption of electricity. It creates a mapping of the inefficiencies of systems and processes and automatically implements efficiency improvements.
· Preventive Maintenance: starting with an accurate initial configuration, and using a limited number of on-board sensors detecting different phenomena, it is possible from a component malfunction, to prevent machine inefficiency. It would be possible to predict a component malfunction using sensors that analyze its physical behavior. As example, an anomaly in the analysis of the harmonics spectrum from a rotating element could indicate an incipient failure. A predictive system can intercept this fail and send an alarm message as well as an intervention request, much more before the system breakdown; preventing machine major damage and loss of productivity.
CN: Which benefits can an industrial user of these systems get? AM: The integration of these applications generate different advantages, both in terms of process and project:
· Efficiency of the entire process increases, sometimes dramatically.
· Cost savings are immediately accounted for, referred to increased processing time, reduced use of resources, reduction of downtimes, that reflects in a lower cost of products.
· Flexibility, since it ' s possible to adapt products according to the operator choice. The plant can adapt itself, integrating automatically parameter modification, according to the needs, reducing dramatically latency between the request from the market the new jobs production.
· Cross solution. The operator interaction is the same regardless the kind or type of control system architecture, the peculiarities of
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different plants are normalized through the Cloud Database; the uniformity of the information is the main benefit for the user and a basis for the economy of the plants.
CN: Automata works both for the Cannon Group and for the market. Which Industry 4.0 projects did you already implemented with your sister companies? AM: Automata has collaborated in several intercompany projects for both the Energy and the Plastics Processing businesses:
· With Bono Energia we made an advanced emissions monitoring system, an application customized on F3 Net solution, giving the realtime availability of data on the web or to remote station.
· With Cannon Afros we developed a Data Collection system for the Polyurethane injection and Carbon fiber preforming and impregnation processes, including a continuous machine state of service. Data are collected from the machine, stored and made available for future analysis: graphs over time, statistical information and quality reports of the pouring process.
· To Cannon Ergos we supply the Robot Plant Integration, an innovative programming module integrated in the SCADA HMI Automata, for real time robot program input and modifications. This allows Companies using hundreds of different programs to save a huge quantity of time, money and human resources! We conceived a number of dedicated solutions, for specific Cannon needs, by integrating in one unique control system different plant functions for the
“ wet side”( Polyurethane and Epoxy dosing units), for the“ dry side”( carousels, presses, thermoforming machines) and for the robots( ABB, Kuka, GE Fanuc). We also provided an integration of controls, with which Cannon can enlarge its offer for turn-key solutions to the market, through the integration in the machine HMI, or in the plant production, of a control system able to manage along the production line different tools, such as RF ID, Bar Code readers, cameras and vision s y s t e m s, s c a l e s o r Q R p r i n t e r s. Such integration of plant functions in one unique control and is the basis for making data available to the operators and to the Cloud, which is the main concept of I4.0; rather than having more controls dedicated to single functions not talking among them.
CN: Then, is Automata ready to make with Cannon the Industry 4.0 revolution? AM: You bet! Just let us have the requests: some of the answers are available already … and the others can be easily developed!
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