The client
A technology company that has been standing out in the field of mechanical and composite material machining in various industrial sectors, such as racing, automotive, industrial and aviation, for over 50 years.
The challenge
The new factory area will be dedicated to the production of structures used in the racing and automotive for car frames and bodies, compression molding these parts in short fiber composite materials.
The Cannon supply included eight presses with a range of 300 to 5,000 tons, including three short-stroke presses of 300, 1.500 and 3.000 tons, one of which was a double shuttle for the R&D department; plus five presses, two of 1.500 tons, two of 2.500 tons and one of 5.000 tons, the latter unique in Europe, all short-stroke and fitted with double shuttle platen to decrease cycle time and consequently increase production capacity.
The objectives set by the customer are very specific and practical: to produce carbon components similar to the pieces obtained in the autoclave, but with industrialized technologies for mass production with excellent quality, on-time delivery and reduced production costs.
The solution
The functional heart of the system is Connect-IT, the application developed by Cannon Automata, characterized in particular by the production management software, which contains the database of production recipes and production parameters.
Through a dashboard, it allows the visualization of process data, their archiving and a graphical and tabular visualization. Another key aspect of the software is the statistical process control, the creation of indicators such as OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), the total efficiency of the plant, and the creation and export of reports.
Functionally, once the job data or the production order has been loaded, the article to be produced, the quantity and the materials necessary for the production and the mould to be used are sent to the operator.
At this point the operator has all the information to start production, the mould is taken, and is read by means of a QR Code reader.
This information is sent back to the management system, verified in the database for the correct mould / piece matching to be produced and associated with the corresponding machine recipe.
The information returns to the machine in the form of machine parameter settings and process data settings.
On the machine’s HMI display panel, the synoptic of the plant, the set-up of the machine, the options production cycle, the process parameters, the trends and alarms are displayed.
The heart of the system is the gateway, produced by Automata, which allows the complete integration of Industry 4.0, to communicate with the machine, with the other devices of the system and to manage the traceability through a QR Code reader and printer.
The gateway, in addition to data management and their processing for the OEE calculation, historicizes alarms, process and production data.
To complete the traceability, a QR Code label is applied to the finished product.
The system is totally remotely managed with the possibility to send data on external CLOUD servers for supervision at various levels: production, maintenance, material procurement.
The benefits
- Productivity improvement
- Process optimization
- Reduction of production costs
- Improvement of process and product quality
- Reduction of maintenance interventions
- More usable information at various company levels
- The solution provided has successfully passed the check carried out by the third-party certification body, thus obtaining the 4.0 plant certification.
