With the new Forcam Force shop-floor management software, users access key real-time factory-floor manufacturing metrics.
October 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 53
manufacturing Software
Why Manufacturing Needs Real-Time Data Collection
Patrick WaurzyniakSenior Editor
Real-time factory-floor data collection
captures a goldmine of information that
can improve operational performance Real-time machine tool data collection isnt
just about helping manufacturers improve
productivity and profitability, although thats
certainly a promised outcome. Its also an
essential first step toward a data-driven, high-tech
manufacturing sector that is globally competitive.
Todays data-collection and monitoring solutions
already help manufacturing operations management
to see, analyze and quickly act upon time-sensitive
data coming off the shop floor. While these new solu-
tions are more readily available and also less expen-
sive than in the past, they are still installed only at a
relatively small portion of factories and shops, with
some industry insiders estimating that fewer than 5%
of machines are currently being digitally monitored.
Image courtesy Forcam Inc.
54 AdvancedManufacturing.org | October 2015
Machine tools connected through MTConnect, an open-
architecture, royalty-free protocol for machine communica-
tions, or through a variety of proprietary protocols available
from CNC controls suppliers, can turn a growing stream of
data coming off the plant floor into useful information. Key
operational metrics such as overall equipment effectiveness
(OEE), machine uptime and capacity utilization allow shop
managers to quickly view the performance of a particular ma-
chine or factory, and adjust as needed.
IoT, Big Data Concerns
The coming onslaught of connected Internet of Things
(IoT) devices and the Big Data deluge may prompt more
manufacturers to seek rock-solid solutions for dealing with
extremely large amounts of operational data.
More technology providers, such as Cisco, are moving
into the manufacturing space with solutions for handling
large amounts of unmanaged data, said David McPhail,
CEO of Memex Inc. (Burlington, ON, Canada), developer of
manufacturing execution systems (MES). Within our industry
there are 20 million CNC machine tools installed globally,
two million in North American alone, he added, and three
more support assets are typically associated with each CNC,
which creates an 80-million-machine universe. Yet over 90%
of the worlds CNC assets are not connected because of a
plethora of different data protocols.
As an increasing amount of this data is captured, those
within manufacturing see a higher-tech, data-driven manu-
facturing industry taking shape. Big Data is just one part of
the Third Platform of computinga convergence of mobile
computing, social media, the cloud and Big Data, he said.
As this third platform takes hold, plant managers of
manufacturing companies are beginning to understand
they cannot manage what they cannot measure, McPhail
said. IoT or the Industrial Internet of Things [IIoT] has some
boardrooms buzzing about the possibilities for data-driven
manufacturing, so its helpful to us, but its still a high-flying
concept that could take several years to land on earth.
Helping this concept land is partly depending on that
first stepcapturing and analyzing data that offers the most
value, which isnt as simple as it seems considering the vast
amount of data available in a manufacturing environment.
Our developers are constantly improving the process-
ing of the immense quantity of events that can be streaming
into a database from a shop floor, said Jody
Romanowski, CEO of Cimco Americas LLC
(Streamwood, IL), a developer of data-collection
software solutions. When a new system is
implemented, it is important to determine if the
information will be valuable to you and plan the
collection of relevant data carefully.
Its easy enough to collect Big Data, but
make sure you are collecting events from which
you can assemble useful information, she
added. I think some of the Big Data arrays may
be filled with information that is not relevant or
cant be processed into useful information.
Embracing Advanced Technologies
Shops today are looking for ways to streamline
operations, improve productivity, and reduce cost,
noted Mohamed Abuali, CEO of Forcam Inc. (Cincinnati and
Friedrichshafen, Germany). More manufacturers are embracing
advanced technologies, Abuali said. At large enterprises, there
is a necessity for global manufacturing intelligence and bench-
marking, where managers can access KPIs and analytics at
their fingertips, anytime, anywhere, in any language. At smaller
manufacturers and job shops, there is a growing desire to moni-
tor the shop floor, understand part flows, planned versus actual
performance, run programs, and access paperless information.
All manufacturers are trying to enhance the skills of an
aging workforce and use technology to drive productivity,
he added. At Forcam, we offer an scalable solution that
can address the needs of large and smaller manufacturing
enterprises, via a cloud-based or on-premise solution and
manufacturing Software
The MERLIN (Manufacturing Execution Real-Time Lean Information
Network) MES software from Memex Inc. features dashboards with
critical shop-floor metrics including OEE, availability, part quality and
machine performance.
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56 AdvancedManufacturing.org | October 2015
the needed shop floor management training to assist them to
use smart data to make smart decisions.
The future lies in development of solutions that allow man-
ufacturers to be more proactive, intelligent, and informed,
and to support executing timely decisions, Abuali said.
Forcams platform enables connectivity not only to machines,
but to any IT system, such as quality, maintenance, PLM,
and tool data, he added.
MTConnect standardizes links be-
tween systems, applications, and entire
factories to provide an integrated over-
all manufacturing system. In addition
to MTConnect, Forcams technology
supports a variety of real-time plug-ins
to machine CNCs and PLCs, including
manufacturer-specific drivers.
Forcam is a pioneer of Industry
4.0the 4th industrial revolution, also
called the Industrial Ethernet. A major
theme of Industry 4.0 is to build a cyber-
physical system to map production Big
Data in real-time, in a virtual space, like
a cyber mirror, he said. Imagine your
factory modeled in the cloud; this today
is a reality. Big data requires advanced
technological features such as in-memo-
ry technology for real-time data acquisi-
tion and processing. With this objective
data, wastes are demonstrated crystal
clear and you win the largest transpar-
ency about the state of your manufac-
turing. You can analyze the production
virtually and optimize it in real-time.
Getting Connected
Many of the disconnected ma-
chines on plant floors are older legacy
equipment representing a huge invest-
ment, and these machines can require
more technology than a standard
MTConnect adapter to fully implement
modern data collection, monitoring
and analysis systems.
Reliable costs and quality are
achieved by data-driven awareness on
the shop floor, said Memexs McPhail.
Second and third-tier manufacturing
suppliers must be able to demonstrate
that they can capture, analyze and share
their production data with their upstream
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October 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 57
partners. The Overall Equipment Effectiveness
[OEE] metric is now table stakes in the manufac-
turing business, he said. OEE equals availability
multiplied by quality multiplied by performance. The
ability to demonstrate OEE as well as a process to
constantly improve plant efficiency is the basis of
coveted trusted-supplier relationships.
OEE is an ideal, industry-accepted metric,
McPhail added. An OEE of 80% or more is
achievable by most manufacturing industry shop
floors and the money people understand this, yet
the majority of shop floors cant produce this measurement
on any kind of consistent basis.
I wish I could say that clipboard data gathering and
spread-sheet analysis was not as prevalent as it was, but
thats the number one app out there right now, McPhail
said. A shocking number of manufacturing CEOs tell me
their major challenge is being told one thing about plant op-
erations and seeing something completely different on their
income statements. The typical clipboard and spreadsheet
approach to capturing OEE, when it is captured at all, delays
the time CEOs can get insight as to what is actually happen-
ing on the plant floor.
Taking the MTConnect route to shop-floor monitor-
ing has many advantages. As McPhail noted, MTConnect
enables manufacturing equipment to provide data in a single
structured XML format rather than an obstructive array of
proprietary formats. With uniform data available from both
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Cimco Americas MDC-Max manufacturing data collection system delivers
custom reports, real-time alerts and live screens of production data to a
users mobile device.
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imco
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LC
58 AdvancedManufacturing.org | October 2015
legacy and modern production equipment, sensor packages,
and other hardware, software applications can enable more
efficient operations, improved production optimization, and
increased productivity.
As transformative as it is, MTConnect still suffers from
a basic awareness problem, McPhail said. Although
machine tool companies like Mazak are pushing MTCon-
nect from its CEO on down, plant managers who may have
heard of the standard dont know exactly what it is or how it
can help them.
Memexs MERLIN (Manufacturing Execution Real-Time
Lean Information Network) MES system is an industrial-
strength shop-floor-to-top-floor communications platform
that provides efficiency metrics in real time. According to
McPhail, MERLIN delivers a 10-50% average productivity
increase, and earns 20%-plus profit improvement based on
just a 10% increase in OEE. Payback is achievable in less
than four months with Internal Rate of Return [IRR] greater
than 300%, he said. We connect to any machine, old or
new, utilizing native MTConnect, OPC, FOCAS or FANUC I/O
link using MERLIN hardware adapters.
More manufacturers are implementing manufacturing
data systems because their customers are demanding
that they provide accurate real-time and historical informa-
tion on part production, said Cimcos Romanowski. In
addition, shops want information that helps them forecast
more accurately, pinpoint production issues, send real-
time alerts when production problems occur, better under-
stand their plant performance and provide traceability to
the machine level, she said. With the correct information
and reporting, manufacturing companies can improve
interactions with their customers, improve quality, improve
efficiency, reduce maintenance and reduce inventory. The
technology is constantly evolving to meet these require-
ments more efficiently.
Cimcos manufacturing data collection system, MDC-Max,
provides customized reports, graphs, real-time alerts and live
screens showing real-time production data. MDC-Max is fully
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60 AdvancedManufacturing.org | October 2015
integrated with Cimcos manufacturing data management
database product, Cimco MDM, and its NC file management
system, NC-Base. Since our products are fully integrated,
information from our databases can be used in MDC re-
ports, Romanowski said. For example, if a part cycle time
estimate is stored in the database it can be used for com-
parison to actual cycle times in MDC-Max reports.
Cost-Effective Monitoring
Among shop-floor monitoring solutions, manufacturing
consultant TechSolve Inc. (Cincinnati) offers its Viz Products
monitoring solutions as an attractive option for smaller shops,
noted Ron Pieper, TechSolve product manager. The com-
pany offers multiple layers of adapters in its Viz line.
There are a lot of people saying Lets get MTConnect
done, Pieper said. A large aircraft maker used the MiniViz
to start up a monitoring system where none was previously
installed. They have a chunk of machines that havent been
monitored. They like our concept of MiniViz because its a
lightweight, tiny application running on an attached PC.
TechSolves ShopViz is a more extensive solution, but
both are fully MTConnect-compliant, Pieper added. The
standard is driving in a direction where theres efforts mov-
ing into inspection and quality, he said. The more that we
can learn about the machine and the metadata, the more it
will help us to understand whats going on with the gene-
alogy of parts and whats collected. Im seeing a greater
acceptance of the concept of monitoring, from users and
from machine tool builders and control suppliers. Weve
got a perfect storm [with Big Data and IoT], whats going to
happen next? Theres going to be a big merge in collecting
and interpreting the data.
A major issue is deciding how much data to collect, and
TechSolve positioned MiniViz as a tool to get people started
monitoring. We caution how much to collect. If you try to
present everything under sun, youre going to get knocked
overits a fire hose, Pieper said. There are an immense
amount of variables. You dont need very much to get a big,
big improvement, and you can get into it less expensively.
Real-Time Shop-Floor Updates
Although Big Data casts a big shadow over manufactur-
ing, many see it as more of a future problem. It still looms in
the future. Theres a lot of talk about it but in practice, were
very much driven by what we need today, said Jim Finnerty,
product manager, ShopFloorConnect, Wintriss Controls
(Acton, MA). Its important to know whats coming.
Shop-floor customers today are looking for integration
of software like Wintriss ShopFloorConnect data collection
and monitoring with existing ERP and MES software, he
said. We tie into their existing software and we
have visibility of whats going on on the shop floor
at any one time. We can make the scheduling
software come to life.
With ShopFloorConnect, users get an integrat-
ed solution thats highly customizable. Real-time
customizable notifications are the latest tweak to
Wintriss ShopFloorConnect, Finnerty said, greatly
speeding up data delivery. Were all about increas-
ing efficiency and reducing downtime, he said.
Looking for New Smart Manufacturing Solutions
One of the biggest issues for shop floor manag-
ers is knowing what to measure and what to ignore.
Recent research at the National Institute of Standards and Tech-
nology (NIST; Gaithersburg, MD) focused on helping manufac-
turing operations decide what to collect from the shop floor.
NISTs project is its Smart Manufacturing Operations Plan-
ning and Control Program, noted Moneer Helu, mechanical
engineer, NIST Systems Integration Division, Engineering
Laboratory, who was a Manufacturing Engineering 30 Under
30 award recipient in 2014. The NIST program is develop-
ing a product lifecycle test bed built on a cyber-physical
infrastructure to enable smart manufacturing research and
development, with the goal to help spur US manufacturers
competitiveness with better factory data-collection methods.
What can you do with that data? How do you enable in-
novations, and get some value from that activity? They want
manufacturing Software
Forcams Force shop-floor management software shows production machine
tool assets performance in real-time from locations anywhere in the world.
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October 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 61
to know what types of technologies are needed, Helu said.
Measurement science is very much the bread and butter of
NIST. We want to understand not just whether we have the
right data, but if were using the right way to collect it.
NIST is also collaborating with
TechSolve to develop case studies in
relevant areas of manufacturing, Helu
said. The Smart Manufacturing test bed
involves networking NISTs machines
both in the Gaithersburg headquarters
and NISTs Boulder, CO, offices.
Were functioning basically as a
small to medium-sized job shop and
building a cyber component with com-
puter-added technologies, Helu said.
These would include advanced manu-
facturing capabilities such as additive
manufacturing, model-based enterprise,
machine-to-machine communications,
and cloud computing and services, with
the aim of collaborating and creating
highly customizable products that are
faster, cheaper, better, and greener.
Some of the questions that need
answering for shop-floor data collec-
tion and smart manufacturing include
dynamic scheduling and routing and
prognostics for predicting manufacturing maintenance is-
sues, Helu said. Where are those pain points? What are the
problems? Were applying that fundamental research side
and focusing on transferring that to industry, he said.
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Cimco Americas Inc. 888-DNC-7858 / www.cimco.com
Forcam Inc.513-878-2780 / www.forcam-usa.com
Memex Inc.866-573-3895 / www.memex.ca
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 301-975-NIST (6478) / www.nist.org
TechSolve Inc.800-345-4482 / www.techsolve.org
Wintriss Controls800-586-8324 / www.wintriss.com
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