Panasonic’s Motion and Control Solutions to ramp up Productivity of OEMs
About the client:
The client is a renowned player engaged in manufacturing, trading and exporting of technically advance equipment such as High Speed Cut to Length Line, Slitting line and other associated Machineries. It is an OEM which has created a strong foothold in domestic and global markets and offers products that increase the output ratio and productivity of an organization, especially in the steel industry, steel coil industry, automobile industry, utensil industry, sheet metal industry, paint industry, etc.
What was the client’s challenge?
The client wanted to improve productivity by increasing the speed of the metal cutting machine. They also wanted collective ownership by a single vendor for machine interface, control, and motion parts. In summary, the pain points for the client were as follows:
- Slow speed with a multi-vendor solution.
- Difficulty in troubleshooting.
- High turnaround time (TAT) during breakdowns.
- Loss in production for the end user (EU).
What was the solution provided by Panasonic?
Panasonic’s Industrial Devices Division team (INDD), with the support of a system integrator (SI), approached the OEM with a bundle solution of HMI + PLC + Servo system to address the customer pain points which the OEM was facing with competitors.
- Product / Service Provided:
- Panasonic proposed a bundled solution on a pulse-based motion platform, with IoT features in the controller and remote web monitoring, helping the customer store production data remotely in a central server.
- No skilled manpower was required to program Panasonic Servo Motor A6 with Adaptive Load Control feature. The Adaptive Load Control feature regulated load to motor inertia ratio which primarily changes over time due to mechanical wear and tear.
- Technology Involved:
- Panasonic provided an IoT-based HMI where the customer could interface with the machine remotely using a smartphone with the help of the XAscender client.
- On the Ethernet network, Controller (PLC) data was shared with the HMI, which plotted machine data such as hourly production, machine speed, servo motor torque, and servo motor speed. This data is exported to a central database to store the report in a non-editable PDF format.
What was the impact of the solution deployed?
Quantitative Results:
- Machine cutting speed increased from 35 Stroke/Min. to 40 Stroke/Min. This helped to increase machine efficiency by 15%.
- Servo motor torque monitoring parameter helped in diagnosis of preventive maintenance of Mechanical assembly. This help customer minimize unwanted breakdown time.
- Machine data shared on plant data base which helped to get plant trend and machine Overall equipment efficiency(OEE).
Qualitative Results:
- Single vendor ownership reduced troubleshooting time.
Long-term Impact:
- Increase in machine speed given edge to OEM against competition.
Visuals / Creatives:
※Image is for illustration purpose only.