Program Name: MTConnect Challenge. Title of Idea: Intelligent Documents. Respondent Name: Kenneth Tock, MacKintok, Inc. Gary Bronson, MacKintok, Inc.

Transcription

1 Program Name: MTConnect Challenge Title of Idea: Intelligent Documents Respondent Name: Kenneth Tock, MacKintok, Inc. Gary Bronson, MacKintok, Inc. Emory Creel, Hamilton Numbers, Ltd. Company: MacKintok, Inc. In collaboration with Hamilton Numbers, Ltd. Phone Number: Date of Proposal: 30 May 2013

2 Section 1: Abstract Intelligent Documents. The chaos that quite often occurs when a machine or manufacturing process is down can make decision making a challenge in the factory. It is not uncommon to have a number of different supervisors looking at the machine and making demands, asking questions and arguing about what should be done. Technicians are often put on the spot to answer questions that they may or may not have an answer for. Certain documents are vital to the troubleshooting and diagnostic process such as technical manuals, drawings, schematics, ladder logic, and picture process sheets. These documents help answer those questions. But usually some understanding must be determined before the answers can be made. For technicians the real questions about why something isn t working the way it should do not really start popping up until they are looking at these documents. At this point in time when chaos is occurring wouldn t it be fantastic to have real time data be displayed in the documents and determine what information should be displayed based on the state of the machine or process. With MTConnect we can bring the intelligence required to answer the technician s troubleshooting questions through the documents themselves. We call them Intelligent Documents. Section 2: Proposed Idea Intelligent Documents. By integrating MTConnect data into documents such as schematics, the documents become a powerful tool that will drastically reduce the time it takes to repair, calibrate and setup a machine and get it back on line producing parts. Equipped with Intelligent Documents, workers are able to access detailed component level information pertaining to a process, visualize the cause and effect relationships of components, and systematically determine the cause of a problem. Once a worker understands the cause of a problem, fast and accurate decisions can be made. The goal is to create more efficient manufacturing processes by helping front line workers and maintenance personnel save time. Even if the front line cannot correct a problem, they will have the ability to provide a more detailed report of the problem, including what s wrong, what isn t wrong, and the steps that have already been taken to remedy the problem. This allows the next line of troubleshooters, the maintenance specialists, engineers, and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) representatives, to start their jobs with more time saving knowledge. The Intelligent Documents are decision-making tools designed to help technicians make quick and accurate troubleshooting choices. Intelligent Documents can be viewed on computers smart phones, and tablets located right on the plant floor where quick access to information is needed the most. When a machine faults, within a period of time a technician shows up to assess the problem. Depending what type of fault is present a technician with a different expertise may be called to the problem. Typically the technicians review the operator panel screens, open access panels on the machine, and refer to technical manuals. When issues are clearly challenging often the schematics and drawings are referred. This point this is when the questions start popping in the heads of the technicians. They peruse the schematic looking for clues as to why something happened? How does one component talk to another? Where is this component? What state is the component in? And so on. This same functionality can be applied to other documents similar to schematics such as picture process sheets, wire layouts, ladder logic, and others. With Intelligent Documents, these questions can be answered. By clicking on a symbol such as a motor, a component portal appears and the technician can find out specifications, location, what

3 other schematics are associated with the motor, parts information, procedures, and real time data via MTConnect. Data such as motor temperature, the rpm, vibration, etc. can easily be viewed via the Intelligent Drawing without having to access the machine. In fact the Intelligent Drawings reduce the risk of injury as there will not be a need at least initially to physically touch the machine to obtain valuable diagnostic information. With Intelligent Drawings you will be able to check the state of any device or circuit and visually follow its electrical path in a diagram. You will be able to filter out unrelated information on a drawing to only show the flow of information of interest. With Mechanical Drawing you will be able to show live axis state, speed, rpm, temperature, etc of devices. Intelligent Procedures are another tool that can assist and streamline the time it takes to recover setup and calibrate a machine. If you have ever viewed a technical manual for a machine especially a machine such as a machining center, there a many procedures. There are operation procedures, maintenance procedures, setup procedures, and more. Quite often these procedures can be very long and complex. When performing a procedure and referring to the technical manual there can be many decision trees at various points within the procedure that are based upon the state of the machine. A technician has to choose which path to follow. If an incorrect path is chosen there may be a chance for damage to the machine and/or technician to occur and valuable time wasted trying to get the machine back online. Depending upon where they are in the procedure if the path is the wrong one, the technician may have to restart at step one. You can imagine the frustration that is created not only for the technician but others who may be waiting on the machine. Using MTConnect, when a procedure comes to a decision tree the Intelligent Procedure now pulls live data via MTConnect to determine the current state of the machine and automatically displays the next correct step. This removes the classic IF, THEN, ELSE decisions found in procedures today. The procedure dynamically keeps moving forward and as long as the technician follows the steps, frustration is diminished and a working machine is the result. The Intelligent Procedures would be able to safely prompt actions within the procedures by displaying commands to perform within the procedure such as pressing reset buttons, etc. and taking voltage readings of components. Our third type of Intelligent Document is the Intelligent Part Drawings. Intelligent Part Drawings deal with part ordering based on the real time data streaming via MTConnect technology. As machines operate over time parts obviously wear. Depending upon the facility parts are replaced on a regular basis or on an as needed basis. More often than not due to production schedules it s more in the as needed or break fix category. By monitoring cycles, vibrations, temperatures, etc. of machines and components, the Intelligent Parts Drawings can be scheduled to automatically order parts if the data being monitored approaches a set threshold. The part to be replaced would be highlighted within the drawing and a portal associated with the part would be displayed. The portal displays the data being monitored and provides the user the ability to click on a button to place an order for the part. The Intelligent Part Drawings can integrate with the plants inventory software or go outside the factory to the internet and order from an outside vendor.

4 By the time the part arrives at the machine, the Intelligent Procedure can be displayed for the technician performing the replacement procedure and refer to the Intelligent Drawing for additional supporting information. Section 3: Technical Requirements Intelligent Documents. Obviously the Intelligent Documents are in digital format. Intelligent Documents will be created using the latest HTML 5 programming techniques. Designing with HTLM5 will ensure compatibility with all media devices such as smart phones and tablets. An important part to this idea is the ability to automatically create the Intelligent Documents. An Intelligent Document builder/converter will need to be developed to make it easy to create them. Utilizing raster to vector techniques it is possible to scan existing paper drawings and convert them to vector. Optical character recognition or OCR style techniques could also be applied to specifically recognize common CAD symbols so they can be marked as hotspots automatically. For Intelligent Drawings and Intelligent Part Drawings we will need to create a plug-in for an author tool such as Autodesk or develop an application to dynamically read the published drawing after it is created. A database will be created to host the automatically generated TO DO list for components/parts on the drawings. The TO DO list is the entry point to enter component/part information. Ideally the location on the drawing is tagged along with other components/parts they are connected to. A user opens the TO DO list and double-clicks a component/part in the list. Most information should be pulled in from the drawing like Name, Location, etc. A form is presented to the user that contains form fields that pertain to only that component. Each component or part will have a predefined and customized set of form fields to fill out which will include the MTConnect data item mapping. If the component/part has been documented before then the plug-in should offer this information automatically. As the system is built it then becomes easier to do so over time. Reports will show where in the process the documentation is based on the number of items in the TO DO list and how many of the forms have been completed. If the digital format of the drawing/schematic is not available then we need to be able to convert dxf, dwg to Intelligent Drawings via a scanner which uses OCR technology that can recognize symbols and text and automatically assign or create a profile for each symbol and add hotspots. For Intelligent Procedures we will need to create a builder similar to other Document creators but add the ability assign MTConnect data items to specific steps to either display the data or change the text. We foresee many enhancements to the MTConnect Standard to accommodate real time data demands for all the components of a machine and all the manufacturing processes.

5 Figure 1 Intelligent Drawing Example with MTConnect Feed in Drop-Down Portal Figure 2 Intelligent Procedure Example Steps Change Based on Machine Status

6 Figure 3 Intelligent Parts Drawing GUI Example Section 4: Benefits The Intelligent Documents. The benefits that result from using the Intelligent Documents are many. The mean time to repair, the setup and the calibration of machine would be greatly reduced thereby saving the plants money and time. Technicians would be better decision makers and more confident at what they do because the real time status would be known at all times. This data is available at a click of the mouse or tap of a finer within the context of a procedure or a diagnosis. Due to the intelligence of the documents technicians would be able to interpret drawings and schematics better. Documentation becomes a living and intelligent tool that changes and updates based on the status of the machine. Faults are easier to diagnose than ever before. Anyone can monitor the procedures to ensure they are performed correctly. Performing operations, setups, maintenance, and troubleshooting is safer minimizing injury or death. As training tool, the Intelligent Documents would be fantastic at providing instant feedback to the technician. Additional intelligence can dynamically reorder corrective actions taken to make a repair. Each successful repair receives a grade that moves that procedure to the top of the list for the next technician to try first.