by Gary Mintchell | Oct 17, 2016 | Automation, Motion Control, News, Technology
The Festo International Press Conference has taken me on manufacturing and technology tours to Germany and Hungary in the past. This year’s event was a short drive down Interstate 75 to Cincinnati, Ohio. Here a large international press contingent toured its new $70 M state-of-the-art distribution and manufacturing center.
The facility features a highly automated order picking system unique to the manufacturing industry in North America and only comparable to the highly sophisticated warehouse systems of the strongest retail brands. With these new premises Festo is now able to triple its capacities: This allows for more flexibility, improved services and offers plenty of space for future growth.
Excellent growth prospects
The center is designed to allow for the speed and flexibility needed to accommodate Festo’s future growth in the NAFTA market (US, Canada and Mexico). The RSC will also support the expected growth in Mexico, which is becoming a recognized hub for the automotive industry. The new center has Foreign Trade Zone status, which makes it faster and more efficient to support customers in the US, Canada and Mexico from a central US location.
With a storage capacity of 65,000 bins, the highly automated warehouse system – implemented by Witron, the leading designer and supplier of fully automated warehouse and logistics systems – features seven high-performance picking stations and the capability to pick and pack 1,000 items per hour. “As regional and US sales continue to grow, this Regional Service Center will provide a strong product supply backbone for the North American market with best in class supply chain performance“, said Yannick Schilly, Head of Product Supply NAFTA
and RSC Mason.
Festo Value Production (Lean)
The facility features an implementation of the Festo Value Production system (FVP). This system is based on closely involving employees in defining standards and continuously improving processes and technical solutions. Great emphasis is placed on consistent communication as well as the visualization of objectives and results. It is thus possible to produce globally over 30,000 products with countless variants and deliver tailor-made solutions to customers all over the world within a matter of days.
The Regional Service Center features both an assembly area and the warehousing/picking area. When assembly is completed, the finished product is transported to the Regional Service Center (RSC) for shipment. All components in a system are grouped by barcode, packaged for shipping, and then shipped out to schedule.
“Our customers in North America expect top quality ‘made by Festo’, with guaranteed supplies and next-day delivery at prices in keeping with local market conditions. At the same time, energy efficiency, environmental protection and occupational safety are becoming increasingly important. The Regional Service Center in Mason/Ohio will secure our regional supplies to the North American market for the years ahead,” concludes Dr. Dirk Erik Loebermann, Chief Operation Officer and Member of the Festo Management Board.
Training and Apprenticeship Program
Festo has established a separate group, Festo Didactic, which provides training and apprenticeship programs both for Festo products and systems as well as for automation in general. In Mason, Didactic has partnered with Sinclair Community College and five companies in the Cincinnati tri-state area (Art Metal Group, Clippard Instruments, Festo Inc., MQ Automation, Nestlé) to create a two-year Mechatronics Apprenticeship Program to help employers develop the skills that are missing in the workforce today by combining theoretical education, hands-on training, and on the job training. The apprenticeship is designed to help individuals learn advanced manufacturing skills as well as earn an associate’s degree in mechatronics.
The first cohort of the program includes 11 apprentices who are training for careers as maintenance technicians, automation specialists, service technicians, and manufacturing technicians. The program uses the German apprenticeship model of dual education, where apprentices learn in a classroom and maintain a steady job.
Every week each apprentice spends one day at Sinclair Community College for classes, one day using state-of-the-art equipment at the new Festo Learning Center in Mason, and three days working at their respective employers. The apprentices are able to take what they learn in class, practice it at the Festo Learning Center, and then use that new knowledge and skill in a real-life work environment. “In terms of educational modality, the apprenticeship model couldn’t be a better fit for manufacturing,” says Vice President for Regional Centers at Sinclair Community College Scott Markland.
The Festo Learning Center is a unique part of the program. The Center is designed to meet international standards for production facilities and labs. It provides the apprentices a training facility where they can work with instructors on high-end Festo workstations that simulate a work environment and corresponds to their classroom curriculum.
Industry 4.0
For manufacturing companies in high-wage countries, Industry 4.0 provides an opportunity for remaining competitive on a global scale. “We are talking here about the transformation of industrial manufacture into a fully networked, flexible production system. To remain competitive, we must take the initiative with our characteristic spirit of inventiveness and give shape to this new development”, says Prof. Peter Post, Head of Corporate Research and Technology of Festo AG & Co. KG.
This transformation in the world of production is founded on digitalization, a crucial element in the merging of the virtual and real worlds. Prof. Post sees great potential here: “Digital refinement will give rise to increasingly intelligent products. In future, the individual elements of an overall system will be able to communicate with each other and autonomously control and regulate themselves. They are the core of industrial digitalization and support the production process through enhanced functionality – from classic aspects such as productivity and quality on to increasing individualization.”
To optimally leverage these new capabilities of intelligent products, cooperation needs to be established with many systems and business processes. “Together with our partners in Industry 4.0, we’re currently defining the new language of Industry 4.0. The German ‘Plattform Industrie 4.0’ with its widespread members from office and shop floor, as well as from standardizations and associations, works on joint reference models and international standards. This will allow for engineering the digital work stream in a kind of plug&play manner! The intelligent devices will describe themselves and will autonomously find the right collaboration partners”, details Dr. Michael Hoffmeister, representing the portfolio management software of Festo AG & Co. KG. “In the future, digitizing these virtual added values of a component will be as important as manufacturing the physical part”, he says.
Being one of the main drivers of standardization within Industry 4.0, Dr. Hoffmeister points out, how important worldwide collaboration is: “We’re working technically closely together with our colleagues from the Industrial Internet Consortium. Our business scopes are complementing each other and our architectures are mapping together”.
Festo Customers in the Region
We toured two customer plants in the area. HAHN Automation and Storopack.
HAHN Automation is one of the leading manufacturers of special machinery for automated production. Its main customers are the automotive industry and its suppliers. “We have a firm focus on customer proximity, since that is the only way we can ensure our quality standards and guarantee intensive project support,” says John Baines.
This strategy has borne fruit, as shown by the successful cooperation with customers located within three hours’ drive of Cincinnati. The nationwide list of customers reads like a who’s who of the industry: from BMW to BorgWarner, Brose, Continental or Mitsubishi, HAHN Automation’s customers include most of the industry’s global players. Another practical point is the closeness of its own facilities to Cincinnati Airport, which is just ten minutes away. This also explains why the company is developing and supplying its site in Mexico from its US factory.
Modular cell concept
HAHN Automation’s main concept is the MasterCell. A MasterCell can either be used as an automatic single workstation with manual component placement or combined into technologically sophisticated automation systems. The modular system design is based on the principle of fast and cost-effective expansion in line with demand as production quantities increase. In the MasterCell modern robots as well as leading-edge assembly and testing technology are used, making it suitable for challenging assembly and testing processes.
The benefits for customers include the standardized cell structure, ease of handling and operation, ergonomic design, high quality, high availability, short delivery times, great economic efficiency, flexible degrees of automation and high levels of customizability.
Festo automation components play an important role in the MasterCell concept: from the modular automation platform CPX/MPA to pneumatic drives from the standard product range and pneumatic grippers, HAHN Automation uses key products from the automation specialist. These are used in almost all assembly cells.
Packaging Material
Packaging material is a typical throwaway product. Packages arrive, are opened, the goods are removed, and the filler material is thrown away. “Hardly anyone – apart from Storopack – thinks about how important it is to select the right protective packaging products in the right quantity and quality for a particular application,” explains Daniel Wachter, President of Storopack for North America in Cincinnati, Ohio. Incorrect or inadequate filler material can damage goods in transit, while excessive or incorrectly inserted protective packaging material can significantly reduce productivity at packing stations in distribution centers.
Storopack produces – among other things – its AIRplus film rolls to supply to distributors and customers throughout the world. During the primary process, plastic granulate is formed into basic plastic film at blown film lines. This is then wound onto rolls by winding machines. These machines are equipped with standard cylinders DSBC which allow the rollers of the winding machines to be correctly aligned, depending on the load.
On configuration lines in the secondary process, the film is configured to the required dimensions and perforations and packed as finished AIRplus rolls. Stamping tools are used to seal and perforate the infinite plastic film to form air cushions of specific widths and lengths. These lines are also equipped with pneumatic cylinders DSBC, as well as rotary cylinders DSNU-PPS, compact cylinders ADN and short-stroke cylinders ADVC, controlled in each case by individual valves CPE 14.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 7, 2016 | Operations Management
If you noticed I was missing in action for several days, I took a little vacation and still had to finish a big project last week. Both missions accomplished. Finished the project and got in some quality relaxing.
It also gave me time to ruminate on Tim Sowell’s latest blog post about industrial operations. He’s been thinking a lot about the people who use the technology lately. I think rightly so. Technology only takes us so far (sorry technofuturists).
Several years ago, I ran across a theory of organization called “Holacracy.” The name derives from an ancient Greek word for a “whole thing”—Holon—and was then taken a new way by Arthur C. Clark. The theory has roots with Lean (which I admire) and Agile (programming) which I know only slightly.
When I studied Holacracy (www.holacracy.org), the theory sounded interesting and leading edge. Yet, the write up on the website seemed too over the top and limitless. It was as if it solved world hunger, world peace, and personal satisfaction.
Perhaps my impression was deepened by reading about how Tony Hsieh implemented (or rather dumped it on people) the structure (or in his case non-structure). Hsieh, you may recall, garnered great publicity for the unique way he ran Zappos. However, his leadership has declined considerably over the past few years. His Downtown Las Vegas project is in shambles and the way he instituted holacracy at Zappos led to chaos and exodus of good people.
Reconsidering Holacracy
Sowell forced me to take a deeper look at the philosophy. Taken in the context of its “parents” Lean and Agile, it makes a lot of sense. But it can’t be just dumped on a company. It requires a culture of trust before it is implemented. As in all team-oriented approaches, there is a danger of lack of diversity as teams choose their members and they all begin to resemble one another.
Sowell has been thinking about operations performance, not just technology but how it is used and how people’s roles can be transformed. He says, “While agile is applied in the software work, what we seeing in industrial operations, is not a transformation in technology (yes it is being enable by technology) but it really is a transformation in the way companies plan, execute, work.”
And so, looking at a more encompassing picture, he discusses, “Holacracy and Agile are systems that transform the way in which work is planned, and executed, with constant empowerment of people to change and evolve the system.”
Empowering people to grow and excel becomes a crucial component of managing an organization as the newer generations of workers enter the field. People a little older than I, as well as many of my peers, were content with filling a job. Work, go home, live for the weekend. But even many of us wanted more fulfillment for the hours we put in at work. Younger people increasingly wish to feel they are contributing.
Further, implementing these systems that are designed to empower people is non-trivial. Sowell says, “It is important to note both systems are aligned and they are a framework, they require discipline and execution within the framework to enable the agility. Too often in manufacturing and the industrial space people put technology and systems in as “silver bullets” and expect them to solve everything.”
I felt in reading the Holacracy website that its authors expected the philosophy to solve everything. Whether or not they do, taking Sowell’s ideas about placing within a framework is a giant conceptual leap forward toward effective implementation.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 6, 2016 | Automation, Operations Management, Workforce
Automation and people. Some people think that they are opposed to each other. A zero-sum game.
As I developed the editorial focus of the old Automation World, I wrote about how they actually go together. In the very first issue, I interviewed a Lean practitioner. I had to convince him. He told me that automation was bad. People could do better every time. Wait, I responded. Let’s not go overboard here. There are definitely things I’d rather have a machine and automation do for both consistency and safety reasons.
Sometimes a job is just boring. People lose attention. Either quality or safety suffers.
Smart Work Mindset
Tim Sowell’s latest blog post reminded me of that old discussion. The difference is, well aside from about 100 IQ points and that he’s contemplating while watching the Pacific, that he’s updated the idea while taking it to another level.
Consider:
[At] one company I was engaged with last week their thought pattern was still about replacing the personnel on the plant, going to total automation. While I agree with automation, it is required for consistently and velocity of production. But I struggle with agility.
Two days latter I was at another company and they were all about empowerment of people. They wanted to automate process and operations to free up people to add complimentary agility and “out of the box” thinking. As one C level said to me, our market is changing as fast as we ever seen.
Stepping back and looking at both these companies the second company was more automated than the first, and the second was investing in automation more than the first. But their attitude was to gain consistently and free up people from repeatable tasks, and increase the responsibility of people, and empower people to make decisions fast.
The diagram below really depicts what I started to introduce last week, and what this second company believed in.
Notice how he has applied the idea to agility. The automation mindset looks for consistency over a longer production run. The foundation of Lean is respect for people (and how their ideas improve the process). Sowell’s second company was “all about empowerment of people.”
He continues with the thought:
The key thinkers in the industry are not looking to dependency on 1 to 2 people, they are leveraging the concept of “crowd sourcing” thru a active community of people. As we look at the operational/ automation world of the future the key pillars will be:
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Ability to capture knowledge and intelligence into the system to automate process, and operations. Key is this is not just traditional automation in PLCs/ DCS etc, it is capturing repeatable knowledge and decisions. So the system must bread a culture of contribution and use natively.
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Ability to have a community of workers who can share collaborated “naturally” with ease, no matter the location of the users and state. Foundational to this is the ability trust the information, the measures so a common understanding of the situation, and basis for decision can be made.
Check out his blog. It’ll make you think. And that is a good thing.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 7, 2015 | Asset Performance Management, Internet of Things, Operations Management, Technology
UPDATED: Carpenter’s title changed after I wrote this. Also GE Intelligent Platforms is now called GE Digital.
GE now bills itself as the “digital industrial” company. It has realized the benefits of technologies such as the Watchdog Agent developed by the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems for monitoring and prognostics and the Industrial Internet of Things within its own manufacturing processes—especially aircraft engines.
Evidently it now all starts with the “digital thread.” To understand what was meant by this term, I was chatted with Rich Carpenter, Chief of Strategy Technology Strategist for GE Intelligent Platforms Digital.
I asked if this was essentially just a marketing term. “The digital thread is a way to describe a concept,” he told me. “People have become good at “leaning” out the manufacturing process. Now we are leaning out the entire new product introduction cycle. They are optimizing to the end of the path from design to engineering. Closing that loop and carrying forward to manufacturing.”
Companies have accumulated big data infrastructures, so they are also leaning out interactions between digital silos by managing the data flows. This enables remote diagnostics.
Carpenter also mentioned a process I’m beginning to hear around the industry. First you connect things—people, sensors, machines. Then you collect and analyze the data you get from the process. Finally given all this, you can begin to optimize the process.
Official word
Here is a definition from GE, “While the Industrial Internet may be unchartered territory to some manufacturers, early adopters are starting to understand the benefits of the ‘Digital Thread – a web of data created the second they initiated their Industrial Internet journey. The digital thread is the result of several advanced manufacturing initiatives from the past decade, creating a seamless flow of data between systems that were previously isolated.
“This data is essentially the manufacturing health record, which includes data from everything to operator logs to weather patterns, and can be added to as needed. For example, you could compile the digital threads across multiple plants to get a full understanding of the efficiency and health of particular processes and product lines. This record provides data context and correlations between downtimes and outside factors, allowing operators to be proactive in their maintenance strategies.”
Health
I especially appreciate the term “manufacturing health record.” That’s a term Jay Lee at the IMS Center used often in the first phase of prognostics and the Watchdog Agent—a consortium that GE played an active part in.
Digital twin
We’ve heard of cyber-physical systems, and then Industry 4.0 which is a digital manufacturing model based upon it. Now we have a new term, “digital twin” which Carpenter says is a new way to describe a real world physical asset. Then, trying to optimize it, we’ll create a digital representation—a model based on statistics or physics. We run the model, then apply successes of the simulation in the real asset. Then feedback the information.
News release predictive analytics
GE held a conference in September that I could not attend. So, I talked with Rich Carpenter and some marketing people and obtained these press releases. These technologies and applications reveal where GE is heading as a Digital Industrial Company—and where it can take its customers, as well.
GE’s predictive analytics solution, SmartSignal, will be available as part of GE Digital’s Asset Performance Management (APM) solutions on the Predix platform, the purpose-built cloud platform for industry. SmartSignal powered by Predix will deliver anomaly detection with early warning capabilities that is SaaS-based and therefore at a lower cost and at a higher speed, making it accessible to a broader range of distributed equipment.
“Until now, advanced equipment monitoring and predictive anomaly detection capabilities have only been available to enterprises with significant resources, both in terms of machinery expertise and capital,” said Jeremiah Stone, General Manager, Industrial Data Intelligence Solutions for GE Digital. “Because of this, insight gained through predictive analytics has been limited to high value assets due to these cost and knowledge barriers.”
Companies see condition-based maintenance as a means to cut existing operations & maintenance costs. With SmartSignal powered by Predix, they will be able to capitalize on cloud and Big Data platforms to drive more efficient and productive operations.
“There is an unmet need in the industry for a cloud platform that supports the unique requirements of industrial data and operations,” said Harel Kodesh, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President & GM of Predix. “GE Predix is the first cloud platform to meet these demanding requirements. By leveraging GE’s deep domain expertise in information technology and operational technology, Predix provides a modern cloud architecture that is optimized for operational services like asset connectivity, managing and analyzing machine data, and industrial-grade security and regulatory compliance.”
Today, SmartSignal technology provides early warning detection for more than 15,000 critical assets in customer operations. According to May Millies, Manager of Power Generation Services, Salt River Project, “SmartSignal has us listening to the right data and using that data to impact our work operations.” Salt River Project provides reliable, reasonably priced electricity and water to more than two million people in Central Arizona. Integrating data to improve visibility into operations was a key to maintaining their standing with customers. “Now that we have realized the incredible performance of the software and how strong and robust it is, we are improving asset utilization across the enterprise.”
Brilliant manufacturing
In a second announcement, GE announced the next version of its Brilliant Manufacturing Suite. Field-tested and optimized within GE’s own factories, the suite maximizes manufacturing production performance through advanced real-time analytics to enable all manufacturers to realize GE’s Brilliant Factory vision.
“Today’s demands on manufacturers are driving an unprecedented rate of change, innovation and agility,” said Jennifer Bennett, General Manager for GE Digital’s Manufacturing Software initiatives. “Manufacturers are challenged to decide what to build, how to build it, where and when to build it, and how to efficiently maintain it. We believe that the key to optimizing the full product life cycle from design to service is through analytics of data that has been traditionally locked inside corporate silos.”
GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing Suite allows customers to begin to realize their own vision of a Brilliant Factory. Integrating and aggregating data from design to service and leveraging analytics to support optimal decision-making allows manufacturers to drive improvements in end-to-end production. Analyzing data in context and providing the right information at the right time allows for better decision support throughout the manufacturing process. Data-driven analytics encompassing machines, material, people and process will transform the factories of today into Brilliant Factories.
GE’s next generation Brilliant Manufacturing Suite includes:
- OEE Performance Analyzer – available for early access today, it transforms real-time machine data into actionable production efficiency metrics so that Plant Managers can reduce unplanned downtime, maximize yield and increase equipment utilization.
- Production Execution Supervisor – digitizes orders, process steps, instructions and documentation with information pulled directly from ERP and PLM systems. Factories are able to ship higher quality products and deliver new product introductions faster by getting the right information in the right hands to focus on the highest priority manufacturing tasks.
- Production Quality Analyzer – real-time identification of quality data boundaries that catch non-conforming events before they occur. Quality engineers can analyze this information to identify patterns and trends that enable factories to ship higher quality products faster.
- Product Genealogy Manager – builds a record of all personnel, equipment, raw materials, sub-assemblies and tools used to produce finished goods. Service personnel can respond to customer and regulatory inquiries with confidence, knowing who, what, when, where and how for an individual shipment.
by Gary Mintchell | May 7, 2015 | Asset Performance Management, Automation, News, Operations Management, Technology
Fluke invited a group of partners, customers, and bloggers to its Everett, WA corporate facility on May 6 in order to take a deep technology dive into where Fluke is and where it is going from a product/technology point of view. The tone of the gathering was one of conversation where Fluke presented ideas and asked for push back and ideas from us.
And feedback was what they got. The small group I was part of came up with four flip chart pages of ideas regarding proposed new products and products we thought it should pursue.
We also toured labs and manufacturing. Here are some brief impressions.
Fluke has an impressive metrology lab, actually two. The electrical lab has been around for a long time. A new thermography lab has just been constructed. I’m familiar with measurement, but the level of measurement and the dedication to standards was amazing. The science behind all the Fluke tools is solid.
Manufacturing is probably a poster child for the Danaher Production System—the company’s Lean implementation. The facilities are clean, organized with information clearly posted at the cells.
Fluke is also moving further into software—databases and analysis. Initially, Fluke Connect was a cool collaborative app for smart phones. Now it is evolving into helping smaller companies who may not have CMMS or other systems improve asset management through the information gathered from Fluke tools.
This is a product that holds great promise for many who need to start along the predictive maintenance path. “We’d like to help change behaviors in the maintenance and reliability areas.”
Given that, here is the press release for the unveiling of Fluke Connect Assets.
Fluke Connect Assets is a cloud-based wireless system of software and test tools that gives maintenance managers a comprehensive view of all critical equipment — including baseline, historical, and current test tool measurement data, current status, and past inspection data — enabling them to set up and sustain a predictive maintenance (PdM) or condition-based maintenance (CBM) system easily with minimal investment.
It features one-touch measurement transfer from more than 30 Fluke Connect-enabled test tools, eliminating manual recording of measurements so maintenance managers can be confident that the equipment history is accurate.
The company says it’s easy to set up with minimal investment and no need for support from the IT department.
The system’s features allow maintenance managers to analyze multiple types of predictive data (for example, electrical, vibration, infrared images) all in one program, side by side, in a visual format that enables easy scanning. In fact, it’s the first software that offers results across multiple deployments (smart phone, web browser). This intuitive display of multiple measurements enhances the productive use of data and the ability to identify a problem, since each measurement type tests a different aspect of equipment health and together they present a more complete picture.
Key features of Fluke Connect Assets include:
- Asset Health Dashboard — Asset Health is a hierarchy based overview of aggregated status over time, aggregated alarms over time, and equipment status timeline, all with drill downs with more details. This permits managers to quickly identify where they need to focus efforts as part of a morning routine. They can trend and compare thermal, electrical and vibration data over time for each piece of equipment and drill down to the data needed for repair/replacement decisions.
- Asset Status Dashboard — allows managers to quickly scan the most recent status updates for key assets so they can better monitor team and equipment activity.
- Asset Hierarchy and Test Points — allows managers to easily create inspection routes, schedules and instructions and assign technicians to measure specific test points to create repeatable, comparable data.
