Condition Monitoring with Digital Twin
Published on : Tuesday 30-11--0001
Digitalisation, miniaturisation, modular production, identification of all production resources, integration of the shop floor in ERP systems, and highly customised production for custom-made solutions: these are the key industry trends. Harting united these in a smart factory that was presented live at the Hannover Messe 2018 recently. Co-exhibiting partner companies also demonstrated how live manufacturing data and a digital twin of the facility can be used for condition monitoring, remote maintenance and predictive maintenance.
Harting’s Smart Factory “Harting Integrated Industry 4 You” (HAII4YOU) provides a comprehensive implementation of solutions. This facility demonstrates total vertical integration – from the customer to the versatile production of a product – using the example of a modular Han® connector. Starting with configuring and ordering in a Web shop, the further processing within SAP and production take place fully automatically. So the customer can assign their own identification (e.g., item number) to a connector.
Distributing production in production cells
The HAII4You factory is special because it distributes production throughout three production cells. These have their own controllers and are controlled by special flowcharts which are assigned to the product as product memory. The activities in each production cell are carried out by one KUKA lightweight robot, which can also be used for human-robot collaboration (HRC).
An innovative circulating belt is used to transport materials between the cells. The product is identified within a production cell using Harting RFID technology based on Harting’s MICA® Edge Computing System.
Remote service using the digital twin
Nowadays, anyone who designs a machine also creates a virtual image of the machine in parallel. PerFact, the newest member of the MICA.network, has developed a digital twin of HAII4You which was be presented at the trade fair stand. When used together with the PerFact MPA (Meeting Point Architecture) solution, the MICA is the core of the digital twin. Here, the MICA provides the perfect foundation for safely constructing a remote connection to the machine. Machine data are recorded and displayed clearly. Condition-based and proactive maintenance can be controlled centrally using the maintenance manager. The digital twin enables an ideal maintenance situation. Thus, an on-site technician and a specialist (connected via the internet) can access this same data.
The Harting Technology Group is one of the world's leading providers of industrial connection technology for the three lifelines of Data, Signal and Power and has 13 production plants and branches in 44 countries. Moreover, the company also produces retail checkout systems, electromagnetic actuators for automotive and industrial series use, as well as hardware and software for customers and applications in automation technology, robotics and transportation engineering.
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At the Smart Factory HAII4YOU Harting showed how condition monitoring with the digital twin works.
