Seamless integration of servo drives, PLC, VFD and SQL database server.
Seamless integration of servo drives, PLC, VFD and SQL database server.
At a glance
Focus: Seamless integration of servo drives, PLC, VFD and SQL database server.
Challenge: Manual logging: Machine performance and its service requirement logged manually by the user
Approach: The customer wanted a solution, which would help to achieve machine logic standardization a vendor-independent structure that is developed and followed in all packaging machine controllers
Impact: Remote central monitoring: Production line OEE monitored remotely and centrally.
OMRON AUTOMATION
Headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, OMRON Corporation is a multi-billion-dollar, diversified company with business units producing industrial automation products, electronic components, and healthcare equipment and ticketing systems. OMRON Industrial Automation is a global leader providing complete automation solutions for industrial applications. It brings innovation to manufacturing sites through automation with "Integrated”, "intelligent" and "interactive" concepts with one of the world’s most sophisticated Input-Logic-Output-Robotics + Safety (ILOR+S) technology including the proprietary sensing technology.
OMRON Automation – India, now more than two decades old in the country, caters to over 7 industrial applications encompassing the wide requirements of packaging, automotive, material handling, solar, food & beverages, textile and panel building applications. The company is focusing on the solution business, including Robotics and IIoT, providing “One Stop” solutions, to improve the overall efficiency on diverse production sites. Focusing on the themes of quality, safety and the environment, they support manufacturing innovation worldwide with their unique sensing & controlling technologies. OMRON is rapidly expanding its operations with focus on all major cities making its presence felt across the country with a strong network of offices, automation centre, training centres, sales & marketing force, application teams, resident engineers and channel partners to address the ever challenging requirements of the customers. A major factor in OMRON’s progress globally & locally has been the strong commitment towards its customers keeping ‘Quality First’.
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OMRON AUTOMATION
One of the top Indian OEMs manufacturing the vertical form & fill packaging types of machines for varied solid & liquid food & commodity products. The company offers snacks, personal care products, milk and liquids, tea, pharmaceutical, shampoo filling, horizontal, and oil packaging machines and serves customers worldwide with an installed base of more than 5000 packaging machines in more than 40 Countries. It also provides complete milk process & packing solution for small & mid-range of dairies in India.
Business challenge
Manual logging: Machine performance and its service requirement logged manually by the user.
Manual logging: Machine performance and its service requirement logged manually by the user.
Cost of manual troubleshooting: Many customers with their packaging plants at different locations across India, needed monitoring of packaging plant and efficiency calculation of the facilities which was done manually. Service engineers were required to go to the site physically for machine troubleshooting, leading to increased cost & time for servicing of machines.
Data tampering: Machine and plant efficiency calculation was also done manually which led to data tampering.
Data loss & inefficient logical operations:To resolve these issues, the OEM planned to build an Industry 4.0 platform. This needed a gateway to collect data from different-make machine controllers and pass it on to a cloud system. However, the gateway did not have facility to do logical operation and there were chances of data loss also during the communication.
Lack of standardization :Machine controllers did not have any common structure and protocols to standardize gateway requirement. The customer faced a difficult time to support legacy systems, too.
Industry 4.0 solution
The customer wanted a solution, which would help to achieve machine logic standardization - a vendor-independent structure that is developed and followed in all packaging machine controllers ; based on data acquisition on different fieldbus protocols like Modbus TCP, RTU and ethernet/IP. The main KPIs were machine OEE, machine parameter, servo parameter and preventive maintenance.
OMRON being the market leader in motion control, controllers, vision systems and safety system, was chosen for one-stop solution for their packaging machines solution. The solution reduced TCO and eliminated requirement of PC and customized software requirement. It also enabled the machine controller to send all data to OMRON Database controller which was then sent directly to the cloud system.
OMRON’s product series from Sysmac family is used for machine control namely NX1P2 controller, NB HMI and 1S servo. NX1P2, having built in ethernet/IP protocol, sends data to gateway system, also built in EtherCAT port helps to gather real time information from Servo drives and VFD like torque, velocity etc.
OMRON controller (NX102 series) is used as the gateway unit. NX102, having two ethernet ports, gives flexibility to differentiate factory network and enterprise network.
High-speed fieldbus like etherCAT is used to communicate for field level and ethernet/IP is used to communicate for enterprise level.
OMRON NX102 series controller gathers data from machine controller on different fieldbus and processes it internally. This data is sent to cloud system via different IoT protocols like MQTT, OPC – UA and direct connection to Cloud hosted database. Security for sending data is taken care with SSL/TLS encryption. As multiple protocols are supported by NX102, the OEM gets flexibility while developing its application.
NX102 controller does data mining from machine controllers and process that data in NX102 itself, so data processing is done at the local level at high speed. As NX102 sends process data (and not raw data) to cloud system, it results into minimization of usage of bandwidth during data exchange between NX102 & the Cloud system. NX102 communicates with cloud hosted Database with all SQL queries like INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE and DELETE
Key benefits
| Area | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Visibility & Analytics | Remote & central monitoring: Production line OEE monitored remotely and centrally. |
| Visibility & Analytics | Service visit at site location reduced drastically:service engineers were able to solve problems by visualizing data remotely. |
| Visibility & Analytics | Better analysis of production planning :Machine OEE, daily production reports, breakdowns could be monitored centrally which helped management to do analysis of production planning. |
| Productivity & Throughput | Paperless operations :All production line and plant reports, line efficiency reports were logged in digital format which helped the plan take a major step ahead towards achieving paperless operations. |
| Operational Benefit | No mechanical changeovers:while switching SKUs. |
Technologies used
Change management and implementation
Connectivity with Machine Controller and Devices :As packaging machine was built with multiple automation venders, data acquisition from different sources was a very critical issue. Mainly because each automation vendor has its own protocol to share the data; standardization was also difficult, which needed implementation of OPC UA.
Implementation for Brown Field: As Industry 4.0 implementation was needed to be done at the existing setup, to do this addition of external devices was done in the form of communication ports, sensors etc. However limited predicative maintenance feature implementation was delivered at the brown field.
Data Integrity and security while transmitting to Cloud system :As data security and integrity was major challenge while implementation, with TLS and SSL security feature data security was confirmed and multiple constraints was added in cloud system while receiving data from Controller like field device MAC ID and JSON checker, etc.
During implementation stages: To implement industry 4.0 solution, approach was changed drastically from design stage to implementation stage. Multiple departments like sales, service, production involved with their requirements and inputs, which led to delivering solutions effectively and solution acceptance at all level.
Handling the human aspect: As Industry 4.0 and IoT is very deep subject, in majority of cases only data acquisition and monitoring is the only aspect which is paid attention. This reduces effectiveness of solution. By interacting with the team and educating them about concept of IoT protocol and concept of OEE, predictive & preventive maintenance, helped in gaining acceptance of the solution.