Our customers are looking for solutions that allow them to optimize their production processes to enhance their competitiveness. In the search for continuous improvement, we find process automation, a compendium of different technologies that are characterized by adapting to the particularities of each product.
Today we would like to talk to you about the intelligent automation of manufacturing processes in the machining industry and highlight its potential for exploring new alternatives with which to evolve towards more flexible production.
What can we call advanced or intelligent automation?
Traditional automated solutions allow us to reduce excess product handling, especially in intermediate processes and secondary operations, as well as to reduce inefficiencies and achieve established quality parameters.
Intelligent automation, on the other hand, goes deeper into the production process and obtains information from the most critical points for analysis and decision making. Here the merit goes to the software ("To Caesar what is Caesar's"), which is in charge of managing it autonomously.
Intelligent automation opens up a new range of opportunities to be more efficient and productive
Digital tools allow us to be more productively flexible when we need to address the challenges of dynamic and changing scenarios. In this way, we are able to produce on a machining center without fear of the number of references, the size of the series or the conditions of the environment.
If this technology appeals to you, take a deep breath because now comes the best part. We can manage from a single digital platform the production of several production stations that operate in a chain. If we are going to optimize a process, let's make it useful and scalable to the real needs of the processes.
We have emphasized the needs of machining centers, but obviously this is only part of the pie. Deburring, polishing, grinding, drilling, tapping, quality control... all of these workflows can be synchronized, their particularities addressed and their needs met in real time.
Monitoring a complete line for efficient workflow management
The wear of tools such as cutter inserts or drills is unavoidable. Therefore, being predictable, we can adapt those hundredths of wear to the pass.
Now imagine that at the quality inspection station the dial indicator or the profilometer detects that, before the stipulated number of parts, we are running out of tolerance on a dimension. The software is able in real time to autonomously modify the CNC machine tool pass in order to modify the pass on the next part.
This is a small example of the potential of intelligent automated production. If we improve the quality of the processes and reduce downtime to modify schedules, we will soon see a reduction in costs.
The software is capable in real time of autonomously modifying the CNC machine tool pass in order to modify the pass on the next part.
We do not only automate efficiently a serial production. We add value to a manufacturing process from the loading of the part, its production phases, quality inspection and its corresponding storage.
For cutting applications, imagine that a tube bender could correct the cutting dimensions of a tube according to the elongation of the bend. We just had to train an algorithm so that, based on the parameters set, it would have the autonomy to decide where to cut the product to the exact size.
The more information we have, the better we can optimize a process.
Until recently, we could only dream of having technology that would allow us to autonomously perform predictive analysis and real-time corrections of workflows. And on top of that, both the software and the hardware of this equipment can work 24/7, 365 days a year without interruption to save on production costs.
Intelligent manufacturing brings us efficiency, control and precision, thereby improving process quality and reducing the amount of waste we generate.
This technology is scalable to an endless number of industrial applications and precisely the efforts that the engineering companies are making are focused on offering our customers intelligent solutions that, in addition to providing value, allow them to provide their machines and machining centers with full autonomy.
Our MIC platform has been recognized for its ability to manage machining cells in real time. It provides great flexibility in the face of reference variability and allows us to plan and manage process flows with minimal intervention, even for medium and short series. Traceability, increased productivity, dynamic management, improved product quality... are some of the features that characterize it.
This technological reality has reached a sufficiently high level of maturity to allow us to face any challenge in the metal-mechanical industry without any complexes.
We have just shown you a glimpse of the potential offered by Industry 4.0. If you didn't know about it, welcome! welcome! Request a demo and we will offer you a personalized demonstration from our FACTORY Lab.
Top photo: Drazen Zigic - Freepik / Inside photo: Lifestylememory - Freepik
