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The construction equipment industry foresees unprecedented growth with a rise in development and the need for next-level urban infrastructure. Mining, agriculture, forestry, and municipal sectors, together with broad spread growth in urbanisation, drive the demand for construction equipment across the globe. Manufacturing setup in such factories usually has low flexibility and throws up various challenges to adopt technological advancement. In addition, handling product changeover becomes a considerable task to accommodate new components and variants such as excavator, backhoe loaders, pavers, and mixers on the same line. Manufacturers prioritise productivity, product quality, and reducing downtime; manufacturers look for proven solutions to meet rising demands. Investing in individual systems to control processes, manage utilities, monitor line maintenance has been an increasing burden on manufacturers. Therefore, an integrated factory automation solution plays a vital role in supporting manufacturers to optimise the process, assess line health, improve efficiency, and support decision-making.

Maximum throughput

The assembly line is one of the prime elements ensuring continuous workflow in a construction equipment factory. If we consider a line for excavators, it consists of different stations and machines for sub-assemblies that collaborate to build a final product at the end of the line. Any disruption even at one station could affect the whole assembly operation and influence the overall operating cost. With the introduction of new variants, an assembly line transforms with a vast possibility of affecting the entire supply chain. The most important KPI for factory operators is ensuring line availability and maintaining minimum downtime during operations and changeovers. The integration of automation brings flexibility to such manufacturing lines and helps improve the productivity of assembly operations. Most factories turn towards Edge architectures for a quick and cost-effective implementation of such technologies.

Edge Controller from B&R is a powerful factory automation solution that enables any industry to control and optimise the production process. With precise control functions, Edge Controller allows manufacturing setups to improve quality, reduce waste and ensure line availability. To achieve a competitive level of production efficiency, factories need to monitor performance at the production level. The factory manager demands visibility in operations data and looks to assess line performance for each assembled equipment. Edge Controller has several core components that provide an ideal foundation for data management. In addition to OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) measurement, business intelligence suite PDA (Process Data Acquisition), an integral component of Edge Controller, supports factories acquiring and archiving process data in real-time. It is easy to configure, design, and customise reports best suited for the process. Therefore, it becomes vital to have an integrated system that connects all elements of production, maintenance, and supply chain.

Process data acquisition is a built-in B&R Edge Controller with ready-to-use modules that integrate design, production, inventory, logistics, and service data. It provides a framework for manufacturing information systems and offers critical performance data to optimise various processes. With intuitive dashboards, graphs and reports generated using Edge Controller give factory heads and owners a clear overview of the assembly line, focusing on meeting demands more efficiently.

Real-time monitoring

The high availability of machines and lines plays a significant role in manufacturing lines. Assembly line typically has conveyors transporting heavy sub-assembly products, which utilises mechanical linkages and motion components. These lines operate for long hours, resulting in vibrations, heat, wear and tear, ultimately resulting in breakdown and bringing the line to a standstill. Loss of production because of such unplanned stoppage will inevitably lead to additional costs. This calls for efficient maintenance practice that can sense failure in the assembly line well in advance and enables corrective action to avoid stoppages. Prevention of line stoppages has a significant effect on the OEE index and, thereby, operational performance.

Condition monitoring solution from B&R – ConMon enables factory managers to prevent line failure by analysing vibration data from critical points in the assembly in real-time. This data helps manufacturers to identify abnormal patterns and predict issues before they happen. ConMon, as a part of Edge Controller, allows monitoring asset health, optimising maintenance activity, and provides maintenance team real-time alerts on operational risks. This acquired data is made available in reports and graphs for maintenance personnel to perform root cause analysis. It ultimately helps manufacturers to lower maintenance costs, maximise uptime and improve production throughput. An effective maintenance strategy supported by an intelligent condition monitoring solution ensures equipment reliability and increases line availability for continuous operation.

Energy optimisation

In addition to line maintenance, manufacturers are keen to identify the source of significant energy consumption in the factory. A factory accounts for energy expenditure in the form of electricity, water, steam, boilers, chillers, and residual water. Using energy-intensive systems such as overhead cranes, hoists, high power motors for moving heavy assemblies, compressors add to energy consumption. Finding hidden energy consumption can be a substantial cost-saving for factories, especially those elements that consume energy when not operational.  With EnMon, B&R supports factory owners to implement innovative energy monitoring solutions to keep continuous track of consumption in individual machines and the factory. EnMon is precisely tailored to ensure the implementation of the latest energy management systems standard, ISO 50001. EnMon is part of Edge Controller and offers excellent insights into energy in any factory, aiding manufacturers to devise practical energy-saving actions, making it more efficient.

New possibilities

To achieve seamless operation on the shopfloor, connectivity and data exchange becomes crucial. With the integration of IT systems with production, data generated on the shop floor need to be shared in real time with the enterprise to support decision-making. However, the presence of machines from different vendors is the biggest hurdle in any line, drastically hampering interoperability. Therefore, it calls for openness on the shop floor to ensure that devices from different vendors communicate with each other and with the IT system seamlessly. With open communication protocols such as OPC UA and MQTT, it becomes possible for the production line to connect and share data mutually with IT systems in unified and more accessible way. Seamless connectivity from Operational Technology (OT) to Information Technology (IT) across machines and supply chains enables factories to achieve a gainful business model.

Effective implementation of  Industry 4.0

As the industry looks at making its lines and processes smarter, integrating a factory automation system is the first step for the data-driven assembly process. Digitally connected assembly lines will vastly benefit manufacturers to achieve their KPIs and reduce overall operational costs. Edge Controller from B&R enables manufacturers to manage and control assembly lines adding flexibility to address future demands. It proves to be a single system incorporating process data acquisition, energy monitoring, and condition monitoring. With scalable and robust factory automation solutions, B&R supports the construction equipment industry to become more innovative, efficient, and Industry 4.0 ready.