ZEISS to present study on Metrology Cloud Services at Hanover Fair
The digital transformation and increased demand for quickly and easily comparing and networking quality data have been standard practice in industry for quite some time. A study from ZEISS echoes this trend: ZEISS Metrology Cloud Services. These make it possible to network data from measuring machines worldwide. ZEISS will present this study at the Microsoft booth at the Hanover Trade Fair (Hannover Messe) in Germany, 25-29 April.
"At this show, we're not focusing so much on our products as on an innovation platform. In the age of Industry 4.0, our goal is to present possible new solutions and ideas for the future which will advance the digitization and networking of quality data," says Mr. Holger Blum, Product Manager for Software at the ZEISS Industrial Metrology business group. "We're looking forward to partnering with the world-famous US company Microsoft at the Hanover Trade Fair."
ZEISS uses the Microsoft Cloud-Plattform Azure for its Metrology Cloud Services. "By collaborating with Microsoft to develop solutions, we have a partner who offers us a platform for testing new approaches quickly and easily," says Daniel Fischer, Director of Digital Pioneering at ZEISS. "With the ZEISS Metrology Cloud Services study, ZEISS will demonstrate how customers can reduce costs over the long term thanks to networked measuring machines and how they can work more efficiently with these particular machines”, says Thorsten Cleve, Director Manufacturing Industry, Microsoft Germany.
These days thousands of coordinate measuring machines from ZEISS ensure quality in varied production environments and thereby enable the reliable manufacture of complex vehicles, machines and equipment. Measuring a workpiece efficiently requires intensive preparation, thorough programming and professional operation of the measuring machine. This knowledge and hands-on experience are important productivity factors and can lead to considerable process optimizations.
"The ZEISS Metrology Cloud combines the knowledge of these highly intelligent machines and the expertise of the machine operators for ongoing, professional usage in industry," says Fischer. The application and usage data from all the networked intelligent machines are utilized by ZEISS for value-adding productivity services which are, in turn, available for every individual machine to use. And it is ultimately the customers who benefit: thousands of networked machines can continuously deliver data on parameters, conditions, sensors and error statuses and help analyze the quality of a measuring process.
There are essentially two different issues involved here. First, Healthcare Services ensures optimal machine uptime by checking current statuses against standard patterns for possible impending defects or downtimes. This enables predictions to be made, as to if and when a machine should be inspected and serviced to maintain high machine uptime.
Second, Metrology Performance Benchmarking allows customers to check how efficiently their measuring machines are operating during the production process by comparing critical performance parameters against the overall performance of all machines. Through a comparison with the best-used machines, conclusions can be drawn for improving the efficiency of a machine, e.g. by changing the configuration, optimizing the programming or training the operators. Performance Analysis then suggests appropriate measures which can be implemented in collaboration with ZEISS.
The benefits of central data acquisition and evaluation are obvious: measuring certainty, capacity and planning security can be increased while maintenance and repair times are reduced. "With this data transparency, service engineers will no longer have to make a second trip to a customer's site because they did not bring the appropriate wear part with them," says Holger Blum. And naturally, data anonymization is guaranteed.