Living in a digital world

One of the biggest things Neil Desrosiers hears when he lectures on machine monitoring and MTConnect is that “monitoring isn’t new, don’t sell monitoring as being new because it’s been around for 30 years now.” Although this is true, Desrosiers, who is the application engineer/developer MTConnect specialist for Mazak, usually responds by explaining that the features and capabilities are expanding which makes monitoring so much easier and accessible.

In the past several years, technological advances have pushed forward the manufacturing industry both in terms of new product development as well as advanced production processes. Machine tool OEMs provide customers with a wide range of hardware options. However, developing cutting-edge controls and software are now very much in the spotlight.

“Our whole industrial group, we are at the beginning stages, the infancy, of intelligent programming. We know that it is going to enhance the ability to get data quicker and faster for better decision making, but we really don’t know beyond that where it’s going,” says Jeff Estes, director of Partners in THINC at Okuma America Corp. New technology is enabling customers to customize their machines in new and exciting ways.  As technology advances, machine controls and software are becoming highly sophisticated. Machine tool builders are tasked with keeping things open to the customer so they can do what they would like to do with the intelligence inside the machine.

Speaking one common language

This is where MTConnect really comes into play. Although this technology was developed and announced in 2008, many shop floors really haven’t had the opportunity to use the capabilities. MTConnect is an open, royalty free protocol with its own data dictionary. It was created through a collaborative effort between many machining companies and organizations through the MTConnect Institute and is continually being expanded. It is a way of communicating data in manufacturing. If all machines on the shop floor are MTConnect compliant, the data tags or information collected will all use the same terminology. What this means is that spindle speed on one machine will mean the same as spindle speed on another.

“One thing we are very cautious about at the Institute is where the boundaries are. We don’t want to delegate or dictate to the applications developers that you have to do this or you have to do that,” explains Desrosiers. “We don’t do calculations. MTConnect doesn’t calculate anything for you. It’s up to the end users to glean the data.”

The protocol requires that shop floor devices have an adapter, which enables the machine “to speak MTConnect.” Many of the new machines being built come with the option of being MTConnect capable. As this technology advances and more customers see the value in shop floor monitoring, MTConnect will eventually become a standard on all machines going forward. One of the challenges has been getting older models connected, which is done through adapters.

Adam South, staff engineer for the Innovation Ventures Group at Kennametal explains that, “We work with our partner company, System Insights, and machine tool builders like Mazak and Okuma, to develop and provide the MTConnect adapters to

collect this data.”

Many machine tool builders have gone back and developed adapters to MTConnect-enable their older devices. Mazak went back as far as their 1998 controls in order to meet the growing demand to connect all machines on the shop floor. The collaborative effort by industry leaders is expanding MTConnect and allowing customers to reap the benefits of data collection.

On April 28-30, 2015, the Institute is hosting its [MC]2 Conference in Chicago. This conference offers a unique glimpse into how the digital age is transforming manufacturing and how companies are adjusting to the times. Adam South will speak about optimizing manufacturing processes using MTConnect. This year’s event is titled “Digital Manufacturing and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will transform your business.” The support that MTConnect receives from the industry is really driving the technology forward.

Enhancing Productivity

One of the questions that generally arises is now that machines are MTConnect capable, what do I do with all this data? Because this protocol only enables the machines to speak the same language, machine tool manufacturers created their own agents, which allow MTConnect messages and data files to be transmitted across a network to MTConnect-compatible applications. However, one of the great things about the protocol is that it is an open source, which makes it possible for experienced software writers to create an adapter for any machine they want. The agent is simply a software program, much like the adapter, which takes over after the data has been “adapted.” Generally, the agent can take advantage of the existing network connection of a machine. However, one of the real challenges is leveraging the data.

South explains that Kennametal’s software turns the data into actionable information because, “users don’t want to analyze data, they want to know how their data can drive productivity improvements.”

Many companies offer a standard dashboard control that allows for basic monitoring and are developing sophisticated software that goes beyond the basic data collection. One way that Kennametal is doing this is through its NOVO Optimize software.

“It is collecting real-world data from machine tools. Actual speeds and feeds for all tools are measured from the shop floor, and then through the analytics it finds the best practices,” South explains. “NOVO Optimize identifies the most productive set of conditions historically used in the shop on similar processes. It then recommends them back to the user and quantifies expected cycle time reductions if these best practices are applied on other parts that use the same tool and process.”

Because MTConnect is an open protocol, customers can use any software developed based on their individual needs to monitor their system. Prior to this advancement, machines could only be monitored with software designed for the proprietary protocol of that machine. “Now, it doesn’t matter what brand machine tool you have, if you make them MTConnect compliant you can use one system, one protocol, to monitor everything,” says Desrosiers.

Many machine tool companies and organizations are working beyond the MTConnect Institute to bring actionable solutions to their customers. The Okuma America Corporation has created the Partners in THINC program that brings together competing companies in a partnership in order to solve problems and explore new productivity ideas for manufacturers. Partners in THINC uses a wide range of expertise to provide integrated solutions to the end-user.

What does this mean actually on the shop floor, though? Estes explains that machine shops are challenged with enhancing productivity and bringing high-quality parts to customers. The monitoring software that is being developed is not only collecting the data but is offering intuitive solutions. “Immediate feedback from the machine and gauging systems allow the machine to respond and adapt in milliseconds, 5-10 milliseconds, to what’s happening on the shop floor and the cutting process, to hold that dimension correctly. That ability to respond quickly in changing conditions, in real-time conditions, is a real key. Linking those devices together is what is making it possible.”

For Desrosiers, one of the greatest productivity enhancers is this idea that you can monitor really whatever you want, at the same time, real-time. You can have software that’s monitoring the machines for utilization, telling you what your uptime is and what your downtime is and how much you are utilizing the equipment. Side by side, running parallel, you could have another piece of software that is oriented around maintenance, querying the same machines to get just the maintenance data or the health conditions of the machines. “The ability to get information off the factory floor, or do these different decisions, or targeting improvements on the factory floor, or just even understanding what’s taking place, it becomes very easy,” says Desrosiers.

Where do we go from here?

For South, one of the directions forward is expanding into enhancing machine uptime. “Where does a user go once downtimes have been minimized? We are leveraging MTConnect data to help users decrease cycle times and produce more pieces in the same amount of time,” says South. This is where Kennametal software development is going, beyond mere process monitoring but with decisive real-time adjustments to increase uptime productivity.

Another area that is being developed is with apps. In August 2014, Okuma launched its App Store that offers approximately 30 unique free apps to users. “It can be one of our distributors or Okuma developed...You can control certain single-functionality of the machine and get that information by writing a simple app,” states Estes. “It’s PC talking to PC, and that’s where apps are really exciting.”

Apps are an extension of MTConnect and provide bi-directional communication. Machine tool manufacturers are working together through developmental groups at the MTConnect Institute to bring machine monitoring to new levels. Software like Kennametal’s NOVO Optimize or Okuma’s partnership program, allow for companies to leverage the MTConnect protocol and bring real-time, actionable monitoring to customers. Apps are a fairly new advancement in the machine tool world; however, it’s an exciting new area that is being developed.

“I would say apps are a key way that [Okuma] wants to go with software in the future, to keep things open to the customer so they can do what they would like to do with the intelligence inside the machine,” says Estes.

That’s really what MTConnect and trajectory software is all about, bringing the intelligence inside of the machine to end-users so that they can make the best decisions possible for their business. What is more, machines can make intelligent adjustments based on the data to allow corrective practices in real-time, reducing scrap and enhancing productivity.