Manufacturing scenario 4.0 – a complete overview of the data
Collecting and evaluating data to optimize the process – process monitoring is the name of the game here. After all, those who maintain a consistent and permanent overview of data can reduce downtimes and detect improvement potential in order to increase product quality and manufacture more efficiently. "At our booth, trade fair visitors get a look inside a smart manufacturing process in the form of a networked welding system," explains Siegfried Heissler, Vice President / Division Head of ARCLAS at KUKA Industries. The production-relevant data for equipment, robot motions and components are collected and consolidated via the KUKA parameter control and documentation system PCD 507 – all in near-real time. All the important process variables are thus brought together in one place and made available for further analysis in KUKA SmartProduction. The cloud-based software application KUKA SmartProduction allows users to access and analyze system components from anywhere and at any time, which is the basis for implementing Industrie 4.0.
"In addition to this, we offer process screening, available as of early 2018. This is a software application for the visualization, analysis and recording of the manufacturing and handling processes of automated KUKA manufacturing cells. It can be used to observe several devices at the same time and from different points of view," explains Marc-Christoph Obst, Portfolio Manager at KUKA Industries. The devices become visible through the depiction of paths and values in the real process video using the augmented reality function. The detailed documentation of a sequence with synchronously recorded process variables accelerates the commissioning and start-up of new processes and increases process quality. If required, such documentation provides experts – including those at a remote location – with useful information about faults and thus supports troubleshooting.