We were approached by an existing customer to develop a solution to an issue they were having that was causing extended downtime and a reoccurring basis. Our customer had a storage bank between the Paint Department and Final Assembly that was controlled by an IBM OS/2 based workstation/PC. The OS/2 workstation/PC contained the data that determined which vehicle bodies were released to Final Assembly.
The issue that the customer had was that at least once a quarter there would be an issue with the data being corrupted. These data issues would require manual intervention and result in an extended amount of downtime, and a loss in productivity, until the data issue was sorted out.
We, at PCS, used our experience as a certified Mitsubishi integrator (we are also a participant in the Mitsubishi System Integrator Program (MESIP)) to develop a solution that used the Mitsubishi Q-series PLC and P+F RFID tags to track the actual carriers and their contents. This created a redundant system to track the carrier data and eliminated data errors.
Our experience as a Cognex Vision Systems Certified System Integrator (CSI) also allowed us to introduce a vision system that removed human intervention, human error, and allowed for automatic carrier routing.
This implementation by our experienced engineers dramatically reduced system downtime by creating a robust system that eliminated hardware failures and reduced human intervention.
The highlights of the system included:
- Mitsubishi Q-Series Processor
- Mitsubishi GOT1000
- Mitsubishi SoftGOT
- 2D Data Marking
- Cognex In-Sight 5400 Camera
- Pepperl+Fuchs (P+F) RFI Tag System
- Mitsubishi MelSecNet/10 communications
- Ethernet communications
- Rockwell FactoryTalk View SE