Optimum robot utilisation through visualisation of production
ZARGES GmbH
challenges
Insight into manufacturing processes, counting production units and making downtimes transparent, without interfering with PLC control
solution
View and automatically process existing and newly generated data in real time
benefits
- Improved utilisation of manufacturing robots
- More efficient deployment planning
- Retrofitting without intervention in the system control
Time to Value
One day to visualisation, one month to use for business intelligence
Founded around 90 years ago as Germany's first lightweight metal construction company, ZARGES produces trays as well as packaging, transport and special solutions made of aluminium, including ladders, work and maintenance platforms, boxes, cases and shelving systems. The company employs around 800 people at three European production sites to sell its products worldwide for the service, trade, craft, medical and private sectors.
“Easy implementation and use was important to us. Peakboard offered many standards in the SAP environment and was able to integrate all data sources without programming effort. In addition, even before making the decision, I noticed that we could use the graphical interface intuitively and easily adapt it. ”
Real-time insight into manufacturing processes
At the headquarters in Weilheim, there are, among other things, two robot lines for welding and punching. To optimise their utilisation, the company was looking for a way to display cycle and cycle time on dashboards.
“We wanted to count the flow rate of our products and make downtimes transparent without having to interfere with the PLC control system. The aim was to plan the daily order backlog over several shifts,”
Martin Lemmer, Head of IT EMEA at ZARGES, names the task. The corona pandemic had put the issue at the top of the agenda: employees worked from home, the warehouse was empty and there was a high and challenging demand.
“In this situation, we decided to visualise our production data for lean management quickly and in real time,” explains Lemmer.
In addition to simply presenting the data, it was important to be able to write back to an SQL database in order to store it in the long term and process it via BI systems.
View and automatically process data in real time
The company decided to use Peakboard. The data to be mapped comes from Excel and SAP as well as from a Retrofit with Peakboard - straight from the machine. They can not only be visualised in real time, but also written back to the database. The products are captured one after the other by two light barriers, which feed the information into the system. The combination results in low-investment digitisation of machines and processes.
“We had already tested several solutions, some of which had developed them ourselves. This was always very time-consuming as soon as we integrated multiple data sources across the board,” says Lemmer. “Easy implementation and use was important to us. Peakboard offered many standards in the SAP environment and was able to integrate all data sources without programming effort. In addition, even before making the decision, I noticed that we could use the graphical interface intuitively and easily adapt it. ”
The first visualisation was completed after one day and after around four days ZARGES was able to finalise the project, which was completed a month later.
“Since we also use the data for business intelligence reports, we had to fill a database, which is why the somewhat longer route. After a short specification and a few screenshots, we were ready. A lot, but not everything, was remote. The visualisation itself was carried out with minimal programming effort, we had no in-house developers, low code. Our biggest effort was cabling the monitors,” Lemmer smiles.
Since then, a total of 10 dashboards have been updated every 2 to 10 seconds. A further 20 monitors use Peakboard to visualise additional SAP order data and logistics data in real time.
Deep insights for optimised production
The production flow is running more evenly and the workload of the robots has become significantly harmonised. The new solution was well received by employees, as they can now talk about relevant details to optimise production that they did not see before. The high degree of process transparency allows the company to track processes precisely.
“We have moved closer to digitising our production quickly and without extensive investments, and rolling it out abroad is also easy. Thanks to the interface flexibility, we don't have to plan all data sources at the beginning, but can simply adapt it to changing conditions,” summarises Lemmer.
Because the company did not have to intervene in the PLC control of the robots, the warranty provided by the robot manufacturer and the CE marking remained intact — an additional important advantage.
Limitless options
ZARGES will complete the equipment in Weilheim with the new visualisation and equip its sites in Hungary and France equally. In doing so, more data sources will be added — for example the entire machinery. An exchange of data between the individual locations is also planned.
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