Manufacturing industry is using a traditional way of manual calculation of efficiencies over the years. There are lots of techniques developed to manage such calculations. Waste of time and overworked staff are common issues faced by any manufacturing company. Overall Equipment Effectiveness is a technique to measure the effectiveness of a machine, staff and it truly reduces complex production problems into simple and intuitive presentation of information.
ReeSmart uses software and hardware together using Industry 4.0 principles to measure the Overall Equipment Effectiveness of a machine to automate the process of its calculation and to identify the losses associated with equipment effectiveness.
ReeSmart is a tool based on Industry 4.0 principle which collects the data from shopfloor equipment and synchronize those counters with cloud so that production line efficiencies can be calculated. It connects with IoT based devices using embedded intelligence for simple and secure connectivity. It senses the data, captures it and communicates using secure internet connectivity with cloud for analytics.
ReeSmart cloud does big data analysis on large amount of data using modern AI techniques to derive value out of it, which drives analysis to action and inform right group of users with right information. This would allow stakeholders to abort un-planned stoppages in no time and help them take corrective action to avoid production downtime.
How ReeSmart Works
ReeSmart works in 5 simple principles, which are:
- Data Intake: ReeSmart collects the data from the sensor/devices environment or PLC’s. To ensure the data security, protocols such as HTTPS, OPC, UA, MQTT, etc. are used.
- Data Transmission: The data is transmitted to the cloud via gateways using both the cellular as well as the satellite communication.
- Data Processing: Once data gets into ReeSmart cloud, it will be processed to calculate efficiencies.
- Data Visualization: Processed information is made useful to the end user by providing alerts, emails.
- Data Analysis and Prediction: Use data analytics to make use of historical data for actionable insights. You can make intelligent business decisions based on insights and predictions from generated data.
ReeSmart Architecture
ReeSmart architecture is quite simple. Wherever Jekson Vision inspection systems are already installed, those can be connected with ReeSmart cloud directly without any modification on line level equipments. To ensure signal point of connectivity with cloud with security – a middle layer called as “Service Gateway” is used which runs behind site firewall and only communicates with cloud bi-directionally.
If lines do not have a Jekson Vision inspection system installed, those can be connected using Jekson Iot Box which collects data from existing sensors to share it with cloud.
In case lines has modern PLC already installed, a wide variety of industry standard protocol such as OPC UA, MQTT, Modbus, ODBC are already supported for taking out data from lines with reasons and synchronize it with ReeSmart Cloud.
The data which ReeSmart collects and analyzes is very much useful to provide an insight to manufacturers about much better planning to schedule their upcoming production. It also gives a real time visibility about production status to plant level user to have a real time tracker about production status to keep an eye on timely delivery.
Salient Features
OEE as a Service: Installed on Microsoft Azure cloud fully managed by Jekson. No Investment with full performance.
Equipment Connectivity: Jekson equipment data is flexibly captured without any modification and extra cost.
Real-time Analysis with Responsive UI: Productivity and stoppages are recorded in real time.
OEE Summary: In-depth details in real-time graphs and detailed analysis plant wise, line wise, shift wise and date wise.
Line Display: Real-time production data on screen, including delays for operator to focus on job, live OEE Factors, total run time against remaining time, good quantity produced versus total quantity to be produced.
Downtime classification: Stoppage summary, including master configuration for better classification.
OEE Live: In-depth details of running job with OEE trend analysis, reject count summary, accept/reject trend, shift wise OEE, and device wise OEE.
Getting Started within Weeks
Jekson vision offers a three-phase approach to implement ReeSmart quickly and efficiently. This approach includes:
Phase 1 as pre-assessment review of site infrastructure study, equipment study, connectivity study, pilot line identification and prepare impact assessment.
Phase 2 is proof of concept which connects the pilot lines with ReeSmart cloud and master data setup.
Phase 3 is validation of cloud and pilot line connectivity using protocols like installation qualification and operation qualification. User training is also given as part of Phase 3 as a go live activity.
All Jekson Vision Inspection System can be connected without any modification with ReeSmart cloud. All this exercises can be completed within 3 weeks’ time in total. Once 1st pilot line is connected, other lines will be connected in 3 days per each line.
Return of Investment
ReeSmart offers significant cost saving up to 35 % by improving machine and labour efficiencies. How ReeSmart achieves it? Here it is:
Increase throughput by identifying hidden stoppages automatically from shopfloor equipment with reasons.
Reduce downtime by real-time alerts to responsible persons.
Equipment maintenance strategy by managing equipment wise preventive schedule maintenance configurations.
Data accuracy by capturing accurate and validated inputs.
Real time work progress by visualization of graphs on screen.
About the Author
Rajan Sundavadra is Product Architect at Jekson Vision, leading the software development team for more than a decade and delivered highly-functional and integrated systems. Rajan has a Masters of Computer Applications degree together with close to 15 years of experience in developing diverse products for pharmaceutical industry.
