CASE STUDY SNAPSHOT
Customer : An Indian manufacturer of automotive componentsSize : > 51-200
Project vertical : Industrial automation and IoT
Challenge : Develop a production management system to monitor and optimize manufacturing processes, ensuring real-time production data analytics and scalability
Solution : Production management system with low cost hardware and server integration
Services & Products Availed : Turnkey Product Engineering, Embedded Application Development, IoT System Integration
Tools and Technologies :
- Key Hardware: COTS ARM Cortex-A and Cortex-A based systems
- Programming Language: C, C++, PHP
- Software Development: Linux, GCC Toolchain, Node.js
- Frameworks: REST API, React
- Protocols: MQTT, HTTPS, Modbus
INTRODUCTION
A prominent India-based manufacturer of automotive components sought to enhance its production efficiency through a sophisticated production management system. The goal was to monitor manufacturing processes in real time, provide actionable insights, and ensure scalability. Embien took full responsibility for the turnkey development, delivering a robust IoT-enabled solution that met the customer’s operational and analytical needs.
CHALLENGE
The production management system needed to integrate with existing manufacturing equipment, provide real-time data visualization, and support local server-based production data analytics. Key challenges included:
- Real-Time Monitoring: Ensuring low-latency data collection and processing from diverse equipment.
- Scalability: Designing a system adaptable to multiple production lines.
- Compatibility: Support various classes of machines already in use in retrofit model
- No cloud approach: Seamless integration with local server for production data analytics.
SOLUTION
The customer mostly uses manual compression type machinery to produce the parts and wanted to monitor the process of production without affecting the existing machineries. It was expected to provide complete details of the job, operator undertaking the job and any emergencies/events occurring in the plant.
Production Management System
The production management system was designed to collect, process, and analyse data from manufacturing equipment, enabling real-time monitoring and optimization. The solution featured multiple classes of data acquisition hardware each for different classes of machine and a local connectivity interface for comprehensive production insights.
Production Management System Overview
Once the work is commissioned, Embien’s product engineering team spent many days understanding the whole process in the factory. We spoke with workers and managers and understood their problems and expectations. We took inputs from them on how they think the whole process can be improved both in terms of efficiency and time. We spent time watching how they work and created an independent view of the factory operation, in alignment with the expectations of the management.
Based on analysis of various factors such as machinery/operator data acquisition, location of the machineries, etc the production management system was incorporated with four custom-designed units as a retrofitting.
The following figure depicts the setup for a number of manual compression presses.
The machinery is fitted with Sensors, from which the Press monitor unit collects information about the current state of the machinery. This unit is connected to a Line Integrator over RS485 which accumulates the data and graphically presents them. Further the collected data is sent to the central server over Wi-Fi, where the intelligence resides and reports generated. Each of these units, designed to operate in touch and rugged industrial conditions are explained in detail below.
Sensors
The challenging and the most important task of the PMS was to sense the machine operation concerning time and operator. All the necessary parameters to monitor the production were collected using sensors in and around the compression press. Since the existing machine should not be affected, more care is taken during the placement of the sensors.
Press Monitor
Press Monitor is a data acquisition unit interfacing with the sensors to collect the machine and operator parameters. The main heart of the unit is the NXP's Kinetis series microcontroller based on ARM Cortex M0+ core. A suitable sensor conditioning circuit is incorporated inside the unit. With the support of MCUs internal high-resolution ADCs the parameters are converted to digital in high precision. Inbuilt RTC is supported to maintain the date and time information of the unit. RS485 communication interface is supported to transfer the acquired data with time information to the main unit i.e. line integrator. Around 15 compression presses are armed with the press monitor at the top enclosed within an enclosure made of ABS plastic. The enclosure can withstand the tough and rugged industrial conditions and protruded flange in the enclosure supports rigid placement.
Line Integrator
Line Integrator is a graphic enabled unit powered by high-speed MCU. It supports the TFT LCD interface with a capacitive touch panel enabling local configuration settings. It is enabled with Wi-Fi connectivity with which the unit updates the acquired data from the press monitor to the central server. GUI design is based on Embien 's Sparklet for highly intuitive graphics and a fast responsive user interface. The rapid data acquisition is performed irrespective of the number of press monitor unit. In addition to the data update, the unit also includes local audio and visual alert respective of the local configuration settings. The unit is designed with a compact enclosure supporting better human interface suitable to the industrial environment.
Central Server
Central server includes a program running in the PC available in the office. Wireless connection to the line integrator is established through a wireless router connected to the PC through LAN cable. The server program is designed such that it receives the data sent by the line integrator and logs the same in the database. Apart from logging of acquired data, more intelligent analytics are performed which in turn facilitates the following
- Increased operational efficiency such as uptime, asset utilization through predictive maintenance. For example, prior prediction of available raw material by monitoring raw material in and out of each compression presses.
- Increased product manufacturing by improving industry supply chain and purchasing decision efficiently
- Expected production time and material consumption
Production data analytics
It is important not only to collect data but to extract insights from them and present them in a user-friendly way. Following reports are generated in addition to the logging of data and analytics.
- Tracking of performance of production personnel and comparing with their past performance
- Tracking of raw materials
- Factors affecting production performance and production goals
- Manipulation of production key figures such as production speed, material waste, run time, make-ready time, throughput times, etc
- Classification of downtime, fault diagnostics and benchmarking of machineries
BENEFITS
The customer reaped following benefits with our collaboration for the Production Management System development:
- Real-Time Insights: Enabled low-latency monitoring and optimization of manufacturing processes.
- Cost-Effective Design: Utilized COTS SoM and custom carrier board to minimize costs in a retrofit fashion.
- Scalable Architecture: Supported deployment across multiple production lines and more machines in the future.
- Increased Efficiency: With our support, our customer was able to achieve 15% increase in operational efficiency.
- Cloud less Analytics: Having all the production data analytics at a local server, the cost of ownership is reduced
CONCLUSION
The production management system is now operational across the customer’s facilities, driving efficiency and providing actionable insights for automotive component manufacturing and helping achieve 15% more efficiency. Embien’s expertise in turnkey product engineering and integration delivered a scalable, cost-effective solution that transformed production monitoring.