Resin and hardener together form the casting resin; a key component in sensor production. Potting with these materials helps to protect the electronics from shock, vibration and moisture.
The availability of resin and hardener in casks is essential for maintaining the reliability and quality of the products during the production process. Therefore, the levels of the resin and hardener casks are to be monitored. Moreover, the internal logistics processes for replenishing materials are to be automated.
Until now, the internal plant control system has monitored the current level of the casks containing the components. A necessary cask change is indicated by a signal lamp. Material for replenishing the plant must be actively requested by mail from the central warehouse. An automated replenishment control does not exist.
Yet another problem was that some materials were provided too early. This led to material being used beyond its actual expiry date.
Furthermore, resin and hardener must acclimatise to the production environment before use. During colder months, in particular, the short-notice delivery of material led to various issues, especially if there was insufficient time for it to adjust to the ambient temperature.
The objective now is to establish a demand-oriented provision of raw materials at the plant. This includes level monitoring of the casks. Furthermore, the idea is to introduce an automated ordering process for the replenishment of raw materials to ensure their availability at the point of use.
The moneo RTM software is centrally installed on a server. The IO-Link master is connected to the server via an internal VLAN within the IT network of the company. The level sensors are connected to the IO-Link master via IO-Link.
The level sensors are already installed in the plant and transmit the current level to the plant control system. To ensure that this use case can be implemented without impacting the original plant control system, the Y path is used.
moneo RTM is connected to the SAP MM module* and the SAP PM module** via the SFI interface. moneo RTM sends defined alarms / events to SAP via the SFI interface. Depending on the actual process, further processing is carried out in the SAP MM or PM module.
A threshold violation starts the order request process in the central warehouse several kilometres away. This process ends with the material being available in production, while the level sensor indicates that the cask is once again full. This is referred to as SFI replenishment control.
*SAP MM module = "Material Management" module for planning and controlling the flow of materials within a company
**SAP PM module = "Plant Maintenance" module for managing all maintenance and servicing orders within a company
Two casks, each equipped with one level sensor, are used in the application. As such, components 3 and 4 are required twice.
The dashboard provides the user with an overview of all relevant process values.
The analysis makes it possible to observe the previous consumption in the history. This allows conclusions to be drawn about the capacity utilisation of the plant. Furthermore, it is possible to estimate the expected lifespan of a cask. This acquired knowledge can assist internal logistics in consistently optimising the provision of materials.
Values for the lower and upper warning and alarm thresholds are defined for each of the two level sensors. These values are based on maintenance experience.
The ticket processing rules wizard makes it easy to define actions to be executed when warnings and alarms occur.
In the following case, ticket processing is carried out via the SFI interface to the SAP MM and PM module. If the level drops below the threshold, the SFI interface relays the threshold violation to the SAP MM or PM module parallel to the message in moneo. In this case, the replenishment control process is triggered automatically.
The SFI replenishment control is used to automatically request and provide consumables. If the defined lower warning threshold of a cask is undercut, a warning ticket is created in moneo. This ticket is forwarded to the SAP system by the ticket processing rule that has been set up. In this case, it is the SAP MM module. A document is generated automatically, requesting the prompt provision of the required material.
This document is processed in the central warehouse, from where the corresponding material is transported to the picked items location. If the lower alarm threshold is now undercut, the person in charge of the plant can promptly replace the empty cask with the provided full cask. To ensure correct detection of a cask change, the upper warning threshold of the casks is also monitored. If the upper threshold is overshot, moneo and the SAP MM module resolve the initial violation of the lower threshold.
To prevent threshold violations during a cask change or other maintenance work, an optical sensor monitors the closure status of the door behind which the two casks are located. If the door is opened, the process value of the sensor is overwritten as long as the door remains open. This was achieved with the Data Flow Modeler function.
The following value is additionally calculated based on the level.
Since the floor space of the cask is known, the fill quantity can be easily determined by using the formula “floor space x level”.
The data flow model outlined below is used for door monitoring to mitigate the risk of incorrect ordering resulting from inadvertent threshold triggering during a cask change or maintenance work on the cast resin casks: