Introduction A US-based global medical device company, specializing in surgical devices and equipment for general and minimally invasive procedures, sought a solution to enable data monitoring from its production equipment. The existing equipment was PLC-based and included a proprietary network (PLC manufacturer's network) for data exchange. By choosing Advantech's WebLink-2059 as part of the solution, the company was able to meet their objective of monitoring data from the production equipment so that process improvements could be made to improve equipment uptime, utilization, and throughput.

System Requirements
The project goals were to:
1. Automate the collection of shift production data and make it readily available for all departments. Production, Planning, Finance, etc.
2. Populate machine downtime databases to more readily determine and improve machine OEE.

System Architecture
The solution involved three tiers:

Tier 1: Equipment Interface - Advantech's WebLink-2059:
The function of this level is to interface to the manufacturing equipment and to serve up both real time and transactional information about the equipment to various clients. The Equipment Interface also serves up that information to the clients through anEthernet interface via multiple industry standard protocols, such as OPC, HTML (WEB), XML, ODBC, CSV File and email.

The link to the equipment was made using Advantech's WebLink-2059 standard PLC driver library. This allowed for a quick connection to the PLC and effectively isolated the new monitoring network from the existing control network. The WebLink then creates a firewall between the factory LAN (Ethernet) being used for the data collection and the manufacturing equipment.

Tier 2: Database:
The function of the second layer is to store data so it can easily be extracted to provide meaningful information. The key for this layer is transactional data stored in a relational database by a transaction manager. The transaction manager executes pre-defined queries when triggered by the process. These queries store data related to downtime, utilization and production. In addition, the transaction manager can assimilate and transform data prior to database insertion. It will also buffer data for a period of time if the database is off line for any reason (such as a network fault) and resume data storage when the database becomes available with no loss of data.

The relational model allows the arrangement of information in such a way that meaningful analysis can take place. For example, we may want to perform a Paretto analysis of downtime causes per machine. This layer can also perform data manipulation and raise events based on calculations. In other words, the database can function as a rules engine so certain procedures may be triggered when specified events are raised. The event may be an alarm in the process or a result of an algorithm performed within the database.

An important part of the medical device companies installation is the ability to measure Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE). For example, downtime is a critical factor; management needs to minimize downtime, particularly unscheduled downtime. They need to know whenthe equipment shut down, how long and why. Who was operating the equipment? Which product was the equipment running? If the equipment was down for maintenance, what type of maintenance - electrical or mechanical? If the machine was out of a raw material, which one? The relational database allows these information needs to be addressed.

Tier 3: Web Client
The client's function is to provide a view of the information from the other two layers. Several clients are used in this application to serves various needs of the users. One such client is a simple web browser. The web browser is used to view real time data and graphics directly from the equipment interface level and also reports from the database layer. A report writer (Impromptu) also uses the web browser as a client. Other clients, such as Microsoft Access and Excel, are used to display and manipulate the data served up from the equipment interface and the database.

System drawing

Reports
An example of an efficiency and downtime report is found in Figure Aand B. Figure A is a report showing a particular machine's performance of a 3-shift operation over a 7-day week. This report is a tabular representation of data by day and shift. Figure B shows the same data in a chart format with the data broken down by machine.

Summary
The US-based global medical device company has seen the benefits of Advantech's eAutomation technology.. According to a Senior Electrical Engineer for the medical device company, "We have been able to cost effectively realize a solution to the problem of collecting information about our manufacturing processes through the system implemented without compromising the integrity of our machine network and the validated software systems on the network. In our initial installation we have been able to isolate three key bottlenecks in the manufacturing cell and focused improvements in these areas and have began the planning of using the shift data collected to allow the planning and finance departments to track waste and inventory without the need for "hand-entered data." Based on the success of this pilot program, the global medical device company has already begun to roll out the solution to additional production lines.

The above mentioned application was designed and implemented by DUMONT ASSOCIATES, Inc.