Renishaw and Hartford combine to deliver intelligent, ‘smart factory’ solutions

Hartford's comprehensive range of machine tools is used extensively by major manufacturers including Airbus, Boeing, CRRC Corporation, Ferrari, Ford, Foxconn, LG, Pratt & Witney, Samsung, Siemens and Volkswagen.

Developments in Industry 4.0 technology and world shortages in skilled labour have meant that forward-thinking CNC machine manufacturers like Hartford are placing greater emphasis on automation, connectivity, data transparency and ease-of-use.

However, achieving Industry 4.0's goals of ‘intelligent manufacturing' and the ‘smart factory' still relies on accurate and effective process control systems. They need to be easy-to-use and provide sufficient immediate data to enable self-correction and adaptation to any sources of process variation.

Achieving the goal of ‘intelligent manufacturing'

For Hartford, a global company that has exported 46,000 machines to 65 countries across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific regions, maintaining the very high quality of its product in the face of rapid technological and economic change and fierce international competition is a key consideration.

At its manufacturing facility in Taiwan, the company produces a complete range of medium to large-sized three-axis and five-axis CNC machines for use in major industry sectors including aerospace, automotive, electronics and energy. Its product range comprises vertical machining centres, precision boring machines and gantry-type machines.

With more than 95% of Hartford's cast components being manufactured and machined in-house, a continuous and progressive approach towards quality inspection is essential for achieving the precision required for a wide range of machine components, including machine heads, spindles and automatic tool changers.

Helping customers cope with the widespread shortages of skilled labour presents Hartford with a further vital challenge to address, as Mr Bruce Lin, Manager of Hartford's R&D Intelligent Technology Department explained: “Our customers are needing to process work pieces of increasing complexity, however a lack of skilled labour means they are having to insist on machining centres that are even simpler to use.”

"The new Hartrol Plus controller has been designed to make our machines easy to use. Set and Inspect is the perfect addition as its graphical user interface means that operators can program machine tool probing routines with ease." Hartford Taiwan

Intelligent HMI with Renishaw app

Hartford has invested significant resources into the research and development of intelligent CNC controllers in recent years and developed Hartrol Plus. The Hartrol Plus intelligent controller is as simple to use as a smartphone.

The HMI provided by the Hartrol Plus CNC controller follows key design principles promoted by Industry 4.0 ideals and helps address skills shortages. It provides machine operators with all the information they need to make the right decisions. The way in which it visualises data helps operators to make more informed decisions and solve problems more quickly.

Renishaw's Set and Inspect on-machine app has been integrated with Hartford's new controller, enabling users to exploit advances in automated measurement and data collection, making machine tool operation and human-machine interactions simpler and more intuitive. Set and Inspect is a highly visual graphical user interface (GUI) which leads the operator through every step of on-machine probing processes including workpiece set-up, tool setting and other measurement tasks.

Operators no longer need to commit machine code instructions to memory, reducing data entry errors and programming times, as well as increasing processing efficiency by as much as 20%. Hartrol Plus has been well received by customers, with more than 1,000 units sold to date.