Guarni&Med

Guarni&Med needs to interconnect a hundred machines for traceability, to know the cost per batch, to have production control and the possibility of applying artificial intelligence algorithms to avoid machine downtime. 

Industry 4.0: Machinery Interconnection for Guarni&Med

The challenge 

Guarni&Med is specialized in the design and production of gaskets for the medical sector and for the most diverse industrial sectors.

The challenge is to interconnect about a hundred machines of different brands, functions and ages, with the company management system and the MES. The goal is to automate data collection, track downtime, know the cost associated with each batch and have traceability and control of production.

Another requirement is to know the machine states, the number of pieces produced, the good parts, the waste parts and the operating temperatures of the ovens in real-time and through dedicated panels.

Last but not least, another objective pursued is to seize the opportunity offered by the Italian National Industry 4.0 Plan for a small subset of machinery and to be able to take advantage of State incentives. It is, therefore, necessary to respect all the requirements of the legislature in this regard.

The solution

To satisfy the need of Guarni&Med we used our long-tested software for Industry 4.0: iDaq, Digital Factory 4.0 and Lilium, achieving all the pre-established objectives with a complete and scalable solution.

The machines, which are a hundred and of different types, are connected to the company MES and a percentage of these machines directly receive the active order code and the article number to be produced. These are displayed on the panel on the machine.

iDaq deals with data collection directly from the field. It’s in fact used to communicate with the machines via Modbus protocol, FINS and through other dedicated protocols. For each machine, moreover, iDaq conveys more signals taken from the machine itself, providing a single quantity that summarizes the operating status.
The main data acquired are:

• Machine status
• Number of production pieces (piece count)
• Good pieces - scrap pieces
• Operating temperatures of ovens

Diagram of company interconnection

Benefits and Results

All the pre-established objectives have been achieved, thus allowing Guarni&Med to obtain significant benefits:

• Time-saving, production control: The staff sends codes of articles to be produced per order initiated by the MES are sent directly to the specific machinery involved.
• Production traceability: all the data of the production cycle are tracked and there is a production history committed per batch.
• Cost determination: with the production data automatically collected, you can have a precise report on costs.
• Reduction of human errors: data acquisition is automatic, reducing errors due to manual operations.
• Italian State Incentives of the National Industry 4.0 Plan: all the requirements by the legislature have been respected in order to have access to tax benefits.

Potentiality

The solution is completely scalable. From the point of view of the field, it allows both to acquire new quantities, and to connect new machines quickly, ensuring minimal impact on the existing system.
Moreover, thanks to the modularity of the solution, it’s possible to interconnect machines with technologies and functions that are different from those already connected.
From a management point of view, the solution is open to interfacing with third-party software for visualization, data analysis, and business intelligence.

Finally, the solution allows to apply artificial intelligence algorithms, such as Machine Learning, predictive analysis and process drift control for each machine and plant. This makes it possible to foresee downtimes and breakages in order to promptly intervene and thus reducing downtime and production costs.

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“With the T4SM team we have finally found the technology that will allow us to make a very important step in terms of quantity and quality of data collection, so we can aspire to enter into highly specialized and sophisticated markets where the tolerances of the gaskets to be produced are really very narrow.
Moreover, the willingness and competence of the T4SM CEO Mr. Vivante will stimulate us further to look for solutions to boost performances of our products more and more.” 

Andrea Belometti
President
Guarni&Med 

 

Challenge

• Interconnection of machinery
• Automation of data collection
• To trace downtimes
• To know the cost associated with each batch
• Traceability of production
• Production control
• To know process data in real time through dedicated panels
• Compliance with the requirements of the Italian National Industry 4.0 Plan

 

Solution

• Based on a system consisting of iDaq, Digital Factory 4.0 and Lilium communicating with the company's machinery and MES

 

Resources

• iDaq
• Digital Factory 4.0
• Lilium

 

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