In previous blogs we explained how you can enrich your operational data with the Selmers Plant Management System (SPMS). And thus make your hardware and processes smarter, as it were. Although we have plenty of imagination, it didn’t take much to realize that many SPMS functionalities can just as easily be applied to individual processes. And to robots, for example.
A ton of insights
To refresh your memory: the Selmers Plant Management System (SPMS) captures, saves and logs countless production or other parameters, product properties and events in a structured, consistent way. The collection, validation and analysis of various data provide Plant or Site Managers, Operations Managers, Maintenance Managers and HSE Managers with a ton of new insights, enabling them to act on the basis of tangible results instead of individual measurements and assessments. When applied to robots, one could start by monitoring and analyzing the maintenance status in order better to assess their deployability.
Input for process improvement
But that is not nearly ‘smart’ enough for us. Because robots are often used in batch processing and incoming product flows, you can also add a verification step. In other words: does each product meet all requirements with regard to shape, weight, dimensions and other quality criteria? If not, an adjusted treatment can automatically follow, whether or not supplemented with a QR or barcode for further traceability. All detected deviations are automatically added up and are useful input for your own process improvement or for a good discussion with your supplier.
Less waste and fewer rejects
Depending on how often such deviations occur, you can make preliminary treatments last longer or shorter, thus saving consumables and/or reducing product rejection. It is even possible to adjust parameters while production is still running, especially if you add a bit of AI to the ‘SRMS’ (Selmers Robot Management System). In this way you also reduce your carbon footprint. So if you use your knowledge and imagination to make an inventory of which processes can be improved in your organization in the way described above, we will then let our imagination and creativity run free to develop specific, stand-alone applications of SPMS.
The solution may not yet be available off-the-shelf, but thanks to the possibility of simulating theoretical models in practice, it is already available in several forms. Does this sound like a plan? Just call your sales contact or send an email to sales@selmers.com
