CNC

Industry 4.0 – some applications outside the shop floor

Once you have a basic machine monitoring system in place in the factory, you can do a variety of things inside and outside the factory with the data that is collected automatically. Here are some examples of Industry 4.0 use cases outside the factory. See this post for Industry 4.0 use cases inside the factory.

Material shipment to customer
Your customer’s scheduling software has access to your monitoring software’s database (horrible thought !). It knows exactly how many parts have been produced at any given time, and what is the expected date of completion of a work order.

Material ordering from vendor
You can automatically order raw material from the vendor. A machine production monitoring system directly tracks production from the machine. Another software module uses this data to update the available raw material, and automatically emails an order to the vendor when the reorder quantity is reached.

Part traceability
You can include part traceability in the production monitoring system. The vendor marks each part raw material (casting, forging, etc.) with a unique serial number engraved on it as a bar code or QR code. If a casting is rejected by you for a raw material defect, you enter its serial number in your software. Your software can talk to the vendor’s database and get the serial numbers of other parts that were made in the same batch of castings so that you can check them for the same material defect. Your vendor’s software reads this data and deducts the rejected parts from your next invoice value or adds additional parts to the next order quantity. The vendor also uses this data to fix the issue.

Logistics
Your scheduling software (that is talking to the monitoring software’s database) can track the position of the truck carrying the shipment of incoming raw material, Possible delays in shipment because of a truck breakdown, traffic jam or accident can be relayed from the truck driver’s terminal. The software can estimate the time of its arrival, and plan production accordingly. Your vendor’s software too has access to this same data and can take a decision (or inform people who can take a decision) to send another consignment on an alternative route. Similarly, your customers can know the date of completion of a work order and your expected shipment date, track your trucks and know when the material is going to arrive at their works.

Maintenance
The instant a machine breaks down, the monitoring system can send an SMS and email alert to the concerned person. This can be to the firm responsible for your machine’s maintenance (if maintenance is subcontracted) or the manufacturer of the machine.

None of this is science fiction or highly complex, and is easy to implement with Cadem LEANworks Cloud. LEANworks Cloud is a system that monitors machine production and productivity. It tracks machine activity minute to minute (actually second to second). You can get any other software to pick up data from LEANworks’ database to perform a variety of other functions automatically. LEANworks Cloud is plug-and-play, which means you can get it up and run in minutes, without extensive customization or long installation.

CAD/CAM software, CNC Program Simulation, Machine monitoring, CNC Training software

Etc

Once upon a time, when I almost got fried by an electric wire….

Many moons ago I went to a place called Timbaktu, 170 km from Bangalore. Yes, that’s actually the name of the place, and it’s not the one in Mali, which is 8600 km away. I used to be a very active member of Bangalore’s nascent waste segregation program, and I was invited one weekend by the Timbaktu Organic Collective to conduct a workshop on waste segregation for their people.

I hopped onto a bus in Bangalore at 4 AM with my bicycle, me inside, the bike on top. I got off the bus at a town 100 km from Bangalore, a couple of hours later. The bus stopped just below some low hanging electric wires, and I did notice them. I climbed on to its roof to get my bike down but momentarily forgot about the wires. As I picked up my bike and stood up, my head touched one of the wires. I think I would have been fried instantly if not for the fact that I had my cycling helmet on. Or maybe roasted, not fried – frying requires oil, and there was no oil around. Good thing that some wacko logic in my brain caused me to wear the helmet before I climbed onto the bus instead of after. My blood ran cold for a couple of minutes after this, thinking of what could have been. “Would I really have got roasted?” is a question that arose later – maybe my head touched the neutral wire, maybe my rubber soled shoes would have helped, etc. But then who wants to play Russian Roulette with electricity, right?

I got the bike off the bus, then cycled the remaining 70 km on a nice narrow country road followed by a boring highway. I turned off the highway after some distance, cycled 5 km down a mud road, and came across a sign that had Gandhi’s wonderful quote,’Live simply that others may simply live’.

Right after this was the collection of beautiful buildings that were to be my home for 2 days, part of the Timbaktu Collective. The Collective is doing a great job in ecological restoration of waste lands, organic farming, alternative banking, education and disability support. Over the past 30 years they’ve transformed one of the driest parts of the country into an oasis of green.

In return for my workshops I got clean air, a great place to stay, and great food for 2 days. I also had a big snake go past me a couple of meters away, both of us acting nonchalant, like we never saw each other. I have no idea if it was one of the 4 poisonous species, since I haven’t learnt to identify them. That’s a skill on my bucket list. I only recently learnt the skill of not running away at 100 kmph at the sight of a snake .

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