Distance learning: General Industry Coverage

More shops and builders are remotely monitoring machine tools.

When machine operators are properly trained and shops are properly equipped, remote monitoring of machine tools can be done from a shop’s control room, from the shop manager’s hotel room thousands of miles away or from a remote facility staffed by the machine tool builder.

The latest monitoring technologies allow a variety of machine parameters and conditions to be checked remotely. These technologies gather new types of information and give users new options for accessing critical manufacturing data. They also streamline the monitoring process and help boost productivity and lower operating costs.

Common Monitoring Data

Monitoring systems are commonly used to determine if a machine is on, ready to be used, in use or in an alarm state. Beyond these basics, systems can also generate information about machine operation, capacity and utilization.

With machine operation, for example, remote monitoring can determine the spindle’s load and whether it’s experiencing heat or power spikes that might indicate problems, according to Rob Nash, regional sales manager for EMAG LLC USA, Farmington Hills, Mich., which sells machine tools and monitoring services.

The systems also can tell users where machine capacity is available, as well as where it’s bottlenecked, noted Brian Sides, director of technology for machine builder Okuma America Corp., Charlotte, N.C.

As far as utilization goes, “You need to know if you’re over- or under-utilizing a machine so you can correct that situation,” said Jim Brown, control software development manager for machine builder Makino Inc., Mason, Ohio.

According to Brown, whose company also sells MPmax machine process-monitoring and data-management software, users of remote monitoring systems want to see the status of the equipment being monitored at a glance. Particularly useful in this regard, he said, is a summary page showing information such as whether the machine is in alarm or in cycle, cutting conditions and what programs are being run.

Courtesy of Okuma America

Okuma America’s Constant CARE service enables remote troubleshooting and monitoring of Okuma machine tools. Constant CARE is standard on Okuma machines with the THINC-OSP control (inset).

Other helpful graphics display the machine’s alarm history. Makino’s monitoring software shows alarm history in two charts: the top 10 alarms by frequency of occurrence and the 10 alarms that caused the most production downtime. “With this information, the maintenance staff knows which alarm conditions need to be addressed first,” Brown said.

Alarm data from remote monitoring systems can tell a shop’s maintenance supervisor if a machine needs immediate repair. In addition, it can help the supervisor spot trends that indicate action must be taken soon. For example, a recurring motor overheat alarm indicates the motor might be going bad, said Okuma’s Sides, whose firm offers monitoring products called MacMan-Net and Constant CARE. “An operator may just clear the alarm and keep running the machine. But a maintenance supervisor who’s seen that alarm several times in a week might decide he needs to order a new motor.”

Builder Monitoring

As noted earlier, remote monitoring is sometimes performed by the machine’s builder. When it comes to monitoring, shop personnel might be more concerned about process issues, such as the amount of time the machine is in cycle, but the builder might be more focused on machine health issues, such as failure type and frequency, according to Pete Tecos, executive vice president of global business development for MAG IAS LLC. The Erlanger, Ky., machine builder also sells monitoring software. Machine health information could help the builder improve machine design, Tecos noted.

Builders can also use remote monitoring data to diagnose and fix problems. Some builders offer customers the option of subscribing to a continuous remote monitoring service. One is DMG/Mori Seiki USA Inc., Hoffman Estates, Ill., which offers such a service in Japan and to a limited extent in the U.S. When a machine alarm goes off, it triggers messages to the builder’s service center and the machine’s owner. If the owner’s personnel are unable to fix the problem, they can grant access to the builder’s service engineers, who remotely log in to the machine and change parameters to resolve the alarm issue, explained Surya Kommareddy, software manager for DMG/Mori Seiki USA.

Software and programming problems can often be fixed remotely, according to Tecos. While hardware-related problems require the physical presence of service technicians, remote monitoring can improve maintenance efficiency in these cases.

Courtesy of Makino

A machine tool camera being monitored in Makino’s MPmax machine process-monitoring and data-management program.

“With a clear view of what’s happening with the control, you can send your maintenance team out with the proper hardware in hand, rather than sending someone out to diagnose the problem and then waiting until the hardware comes in,” Tecos said. “In many cases, we can shave a day off the service call because our people are going out with the right materials.”

According to Nash, an EMAG case history shows how effective remote diagnosis by builders can be. A customer struggled for a week to diagnose a fan-motor problem that had cut production almost in half. The customer finally contacted EMAG’s service department, which connected remotely to the machine. Within 5 minutes, the service department diagnosed the problem, then dispatched a properly equipped technician to fix it. Upon arrival, the technician had the machine running at 100 percent capacity in less than 30 minutes.

Seeing in the Dark

Among other things, remote monitoring is a key enabler of lights-out machining. With access to a remote monitoring system, for example, “a service guy who went home at 5 p.m can get an e-mail or text that a machine went down at 8 p.m.,” said Okuma’s Sides.

Makino’s remote monitoring package can inform users by e-mail or text about alarms and other events that take place during unattended machining. “If a part finishes in the middle of the night, the software can notify you so you can come in and change the part out,” Brown noted.

Remote monitoring by machine builders also can facilitate lights-out machining. “If there’s a software glitch or a switch is malfunctioning at 10 p.m., we can override the switch or fix the software problem right there at our desk,” said EMAG’s Nash.

EMAG customers with home or off-site access to the same information also can participate in the process of correcting lights-out production problems. “It’s all about them being able to walk into the shop the next day and have a pile of good parts rather than a pile of parts they have to gage,” Nash said.

One Shop, Multiple Brands

For most shops, the task of remote monitoring is complicated because they use machine tools from more than one manufacturer. “It’s not often that you’ll walk into a small or medium-size shop and see a homogeneous machine or control environment,” said MAG’s Tecos. “Typically, they’ll have many different brands of machines and many different types of controls. To get an accurate picture of what’s happening on the shop floor, a remote monitoring system has to be able to report on all of those assets, not just a small subset.”

Several products enable remote monitoring of machines from different builders. One is MAG’s Freedom eLog, part of its Freedom eWARE software suite. With Freedom eLog, which is sold as a stand-alone product as well as with other Freedom eWARE modules, “it doesn’t matter who built the machine or what type of control it is,” Tecos noted. The software can extract data from any manufacturing asset so users can see how much time their machines are actually spending in process, in cycle, in repair and in several other time categories defined by global standards.