Automation of battery formation management process for
Automation of battery formation management process for
At a glance
Focus: Automation of battery formation management process for. Challenge: Battery formation is a critical process in the battery manufacturing process, which directly affects battery…
Approach: Utthunga clearly understood the requirement by interacting with the Operators and understanding the entire formation… Impact: accuracy of collected data and timely data capture suitable for Audits.
Business challenge
Battery formation is a critical process in the battery manufacturing process, which directly affects battery quality. A VRLA Battery Manufacturer was looking for digitization of their formation process as the manual methods were posing challenges in acquisition, recording and storing of the formation data. Accuracy, consistency and timely capturing of data was required and data had to be retained for many years for compliance and failure analysis.
Industry 4.0 solution
Utthunga team designed a Tablet based solution with probes to measure voltage and current for various intervals in charging & discharging cycles. The application was integrated with Bluetooth enabled QR Code Scanner to track individual batteries.
The time stamping of the data makes it accurate with respect to key battery parameters Post data collection the data is electronically transferred to the standard format provided by manufacturer and to a central database where it is stored. Tablet Assisted process for operators including Alarms and Multiple devices are supported and also formation process can be continued from one device to the other Javelin provides central access for all the records and reports.
Utthunga clearly understood the requirement by interacting with the Operators and understanding the entire formation process. Utthunga came up with a solution having Tablet based application, which would be used, by the operators and the Server to maintain the history data and enable reports. Tablet was interfaced with a Hardware module to interface with the Voltage probes and Current clamp meter.
GM-100: It is a hand-held device designed to be used by the operators during the battery formation process. The hand-held device enables the user to measure the Bank/ Battery voltage and current during the formation process through wireless (Bluetooth enabled) Voltage/Current clamp meter. Then the data is pushed to the centralized server. GM-100 is a convenient solution, which reduces the time, and effort needed to record formation data and ensures high accuracy at the same time. In case the server goes down, the hand-held device will continue to operate in ‘Island Mode’. This means, the end user without any problem can use the device and the data will be stored locally on the device. When the server come up, the data gets synced to the server.
Javelin: All the parameters measured by the device are logged and uploaded instantaneously to the centralized IIOT platform called Javelin. System configuration, User management, Reports creation is done in Javelin.
Key benefits
| Area | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Quality | 100% accuracy of collected data and timely data capture suitable for Audits. |
| Cost Savings | Digitization of the Formation process improved the efficiency by reducing the personnel cost by 50%. |
| Quality | No manual entry into formation log sheet, which prevents human errors improving the battery quality. |
| Visibility & Analytics | Historical data maintained for many years with download option. |
Technologies used
Change management and implementation
GM-100 field device and Javelin IIoT application are two of our important products in battery formation solution. GM-100 consists of a Windows Tablet in a safe casing with ports for connecting current and voltage meters. Javelin IIoT application has a dashboard with formation stage summary, analytics and provides necessary reports to download.