MEMEX - Shop Floor Visibility for OEE

Part Two: Discussing the Industrial Internet of Things with David McPhail, CEO, MEMEX

Jennifer Rideout | Content Subject Matter Expert Manufacturing, Energy & Education | Cisco |April 12, 2017

Cyber-physical systems are dramatically changing the manufacturing industry. MEMEX Inc., a Canadian software and hardware provider, is helping making the factory of the future a reality for manufacturers around the world.

In part two of our conversation with David McPhail, CEO of MEMEX, we talk about how to simplify the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the results MEMEX customers are experiencing with IIoT solutions and his advice for Canadian manufacturers.

Read part one of our conversation here.

Jennifer Rideout: The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is still a confusing subject for many manufacturers. What are your thoughts on the IIoT and how do you explain the concept to your customers?

David McPhail, CEO, MEMEX: We recognized long ago that in order for our customers to understand and benefit from the adoption of IIoT technology and the associated business outcomes, we had to boil the perceived complexity of IIoT down to a few digestible pieces.

For the promise of IIoT to be real, there must be data. This data must be collected securely from all manufacturing assets, regardless of their type and age, utilizing a robust and secure connectivity layer consisting of either machine side hardware devices or available software protocols such as MTConnect or OPC.

This data is collected in real-time and easily displayed and reported to the entire operational management team. The use of this data must lead to tangible business outcomes, with a repeatable and demonstrable value equation or ROI.

In our case, MERLIN calculates Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), the most important efficiency metric in manufacturing today.

JR: I’d like to make the IIoT real for our readers. Give me a few examples of how your customers are using MERLIN to produce tangible, measurable business outcomes.

DM: Mazak is one of the best example that comes to mind. Together with adopting MERLIN, Mazak deployed a series of 60-inch display monitors across their plant to establish a visual performance benchmark, and related training protocols, that could easily expand across their massive machine tool manufacturing plant.

For the first time, Mazak’s top management and operational teams had access to actionable reports. This led to a host of immediate valuable improvements. Their adoption of MERLIN afforded them a 42% productivity increase within the first six months, along with reducing operator overtime by 100 hours/month. Another benefit was the return of 400 hours/month of previously outsourced work.

This project also resulted in the development of SmartBox, a platform that allows for an easy and secure entrance into the IIoT for manufacturers.

JR: Thanks for your time David, I have one last question. What advice do you have for manufacturers who want to adopt IIoT solutions, but aren’t sure where to start (or how)?

DM: In any decision where there is new ground to be broken, such as the adoption of IIoT-centric technology in manufacturing, the first questions should be WHY? Unfortunately too many companies focus on the HOW first, and that is where the confusion starts, in my opinion.

When a company ignores the “why should we do this” question in favor of the “how do we do this” question, the anticipated IIoT-centric business outcome has been relegated to the second-most important piece of information. The HOW is where all the technical issues are addressed. These can include both technical specification-type details, as well as internal change management-type issues that, although important in their own right, unfortunately do not assist the decision maker in determining the net effect that an IIoT project can have on the company’s bottom line.

The WHY is the first question that should be answered, as this will accurately paint the picture of the anticipated investment in IIoT (the risk), as well as the anticipated business outcome (the reward). Only once this piece of important information, the business outcome (the WHY), is understood by decision makers, and the project “greenlighted,” is the HOW relevant.

We have many case studies of manufacturers that have blazed the IIoT trail for others to follow. The number one item to be learned from their IIoT implementation is the actual ROI received for the efforts expended.

My advice: start with the ROI value and timeline and determine if the project cost (the investment) is worth the price of success.

To view the original blog click here

MEMEX - Real-Time Data Visualization

Q&A: Discussing the Industrial Internet of Things with David McPhail, CEO, MEMEX

Jennifer Rideout | Content Subject Matter Expert Manufacturing, Energy & Education | Cisco |April 3, 2017

The manufacturing industry is undergoing a significant shift in how products are made. Cyber-physical systems, made possible by the introduction of a secure IT network to the shop floor, are creating new ways for manufacturers to monitor, analyze and automate processes. The result? Manufacturers are spending less money, while making more, on the factory floor.

At the heart of these cyber-physical systems is MEMEX, a Canadian software and hardware provider based in Burlington, ON. I sat down recently with David McPhail, CEO of MEMEX, to discuss the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), MEMEX’s latest solution and his advice for Canadian manufacturers.

Part one of our conversation is below. Watch this space for part two in the coming days.

Jennifer Rideout: For readers not familiar with MEMEX, describe your company for us.

MEMEX - David McPhail

David McPhail, CEO, MEMEX

David McPhail, CEO, MEMEX: Established in 1992, MEMEX was founded with a vision to improve the way automated machine and production equipment work and connect on the factory floor. Since then MEMEX has proved itself a pioneer in IIoT time and again.

With a comprehensive understanding of the manufacturing industry, we are the global leader in machine to machine connectivity solutions. We have been on the leading-edge of the convergence of industrial trends in Computing Power, Connectivity of Machines, Industry Standards, Advance Software Technology and Manufacturing Domain Expertise.

We are also the developer of MERLIN, an award-winning IIoT technology platform that delivers tangible increases in manufacturing productivity in Real-Time. As a company, we are committed to our mission: “successfully transforming factories of today into factories of the future.”

Encouraged by the rapid adoption and success of MERLIN, we relentlessly pursue the development of increasingly innovative solutions suitable for the IIoT era. Our company envisions converting every machine into a node on the corporate network, creating visibility from shop-floor-to-top-floor.

JR: Tell me more about your solution, MERLIN. What value does it offer manufacturers?

DM: MEMEX’s software and hardware IIoT solution enable customers to achieve tangible IIoT-centric business outcomes. Our MERLIN software suite and connectivity products has enabled manufacturers to achieve upwards of a 50% increase in productivity and a 20%-plus increase in profit, on average. Additionally customers have secured payback in less than four months, which equates to an Internal Rate of Return greater than 300 per cent.

MERLIN provides manufacturing analytics that enable the effective execution of continuous improvement initiatives in real-time. This allows the entire plant operations to be Lean. Furthermore, MERLIN creates the opportunity for a dramatic increase in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) based on accurate real-time information collected over a communication network connecting all machines, old and new.

MERLIN is the essential link that allows manufacturers to connect machines together in a cost-effective and secure fashion. And it does so while ensuring machines, either in a single plant or multiple plants, are consistently reporting performance data in real-time to all stakeholders – from the shop-floor to the top-floor.

JR: On that note, you recently introduced a new product. How does that build on your existing solutions?

DM: At IMTS 2016, we announced the launch of MERLIN Tempus™ and MERLIN Tempus Enterprise Edition (EE), the next generation of our award-winning MERLIN Manufacturing Execution System (MES).

MERLIN Tempus offers a new generation of tools and a dynamic configurable web-enabled dashboard that provides a complete view of the shop floor. The Enterprise Edition offers complete OEE calculations and other critical metrics, along with a dynamic visual job scheduler. It also empowers customers to seamlessly incorporate future Smart Manufacturing technologies as a part of the overall MERLIN platform.

We developed MERLIN Tempus as an extremely flexible out-of-the-box packaged platform/tool kit solution that is proven, comprehensive and complete with no custom programming required. Additionally, the system includes a robust reporting engine that offers an unlimited number of slice-and-dice data reports, automated report scheduling, and real-time machine alerts via email or SMS.

This translates into fast, low-cost implementation, easy-to-understand OEE metrics, and a rapid ROI.

Watch this space for part two of our conversation, where David will talk about how to simplify the IIoT for factory operators and share his advice for Canadian manufacturers.

To view the original blog click here

MEMEX - Measuring Manufacturing Excellence Logo

Thanks Tim Edstrom

Outstanding Software Developer – Summer Internship at Memex Inc.

Today is Tim Edstrom’s last day as a summer intern for Memex Inc. Tim started for MEMEX the latter part of May in a 30 hours per week position as a software developer. Tim was up here the latter part of May to meet everyone and then worked remote.

Tim is a very bright young developer who did an outstanding job working on a future software package for our MERLIN Manufacturing Executive System (MES) platform. The software package Tim worked on will be a first in the industry piece of software.

Tim is finishing up his BS in Computer Science at James Madison University this year and will graduate in May of 2017.

Huge thanks to Tim for doing a great job for MEMEX’s Software Development Group!

Below are a few photos of Tim in his remote office with the crystal globe that we had created to show a token of our appreciation, as well as the MEMEX Development group lunch that occurred when Tim was in the MEMEX office during his May visit.

 

Above is the crystal globe that states, “In Recognition of Outstanding Software Development Presented To Tim Edstrom 2016”

We have a tradition of making the interns/co-ops ( James and Gaurav ) wear the famous Montana’s of Canada horns :-)

Above is the extremely talented Memex DEV Team. From left to right is Ryan, Brian, Doug, Tim, Tim S., Jeremy, Dave, Terry and Anusha (not pictured is Gowtham who was on vacation and Ken who is in Woodstock).  Tim learned a great deal from the MEMEX DEV team.

Best of luck Tim!

MEMEX - Measuring Manufacturing Excellence Logo

Smarten Up

April 2016, Machine Metrics | Quality, Kip Hanson

When I started on the shop foor, machine tools were dumb. Communication levels weren’t determined by protocols or baud rates but by which machinist could yell the loudest. NC programs were loaded from paper tape, tool offsets made with a hammer, and part quality results recorded on handwritten forms.

What a change a few decades make. Today’s technology allows shops to monitor virtually every aspect of production, from what tools were changed yesterday to how many minutes the spindles sat idle last week to what jobs are running on which machines right now. So much has changed, in fact, that some say the next industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, is upon us.

Getting everyone on the same page

One proponent of this revolution is David McPhail, president of industrial communications platform provider Memex Inc., in Burlington, ON, who counts Mazak Corp. among key global customers for the company’s flagship product, Merlin. McPhail points to data driven manufacturing and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as two examples of the technology companies can leverage to improve productivity and part quality, if only they have the will to overcome fear of the unknown.

“Change of any kind is hard, especially when people don’t understand the technology behind it,” he says. “But when someone thinks to themselves, ‘if I don’t do anything, then there’s no risk,’ it brings about the worst kind of paralysis. Manufacturing companies must learn to embrace technology if they are to gain a competitive advantage.”

Those advantages are numerous. Lights out production, shorter lead times, improved tool life—the list goes on. One often-overlooked benefit of integrated machine communication is better part quality, says McPhail.

MEMEX - Measuring Manufacturing Excellence Logo

The Three “A”s of MTConnect – the Adapter, Agent and Application

Dave Edstrom, CTO of MEMEX Inc., explains the three “A”s of MTConnect in his blog.

As the former President and Chairman of the Board of the MTConnect Institute, I have given this 10 minute presentation countless number of times to explain the Three “A”s of MTConnect – the Adapter, Agent and Application.

As a reminder, MTConnect is the open, royalty-free manufacturing communications protocol which fosters greater interoperability between manufacturing devices and software. The MTConnect standard provides connectivity and the capability to monitor and then harvest data from the entire production floor: machines, cells, devices, and processes. The standard makes this possible, because its based on XML and HTTP Internet technology for real-time data sharing.

The adapter is the piece of software and/or hardware that sits between the device itself, such as a machine tool, sensor, compressor, any MTConnect enabled device, and the agent.  The adapter needs to speak the specific language that the device understands and then convert that to SHDR (Simple Hierarchical Data Representation – a simple time stamped human readable stream separated by “|” symbols as delimiters.  The information is sent continuously from the device to the adapter and then to the agent. Please note that the SHDR protocol is not officially part of the MTConnect spec, but in reality, almost all of the adapters use SHDR to speak to the reference agent. The reference agent is the agent that is out at http://github.com/MTConnect that almost all of the implementations out there today use as their agent.

The agent can be thought of as a simple web server that on one side talks to the adapter and the other side talks to applications.  The agent is what translates the SHDR and makes it available in MTConnect (XML) format via http (how you access any webpage on the web today such as ESPN.com). The agent responds to simple commands from the apps or applications such as probe, current, sample or asset as examples.  The agent has a circular buffer for storing the data that is coming from the adapter.  Typically this is about 10 minutes of data.

The app or applications can be anything that wants to get information from the agent on what the MTConnect enabled device is doing.  Typically, the app is a shop floor monitoring app such as MERLIN.  Apps query the agent and typically store that information into a database as well as make that info available in dashboards, reports, email alerts and countless other ways.

I think these 10 minutes should give you a very nice overview of how MTConnect works and a deeper dive on what happens under the covers for MTConnect with the Adapter, Agent and Application.

As I stated in the webcast, you can learn more here

To view Dave Edstrom’s blog, please click here.