Smart RDM – monitoring and much more in the ceramics industry
The Smart RDM platform is a professional IT solution ideally suited to the needs of the manufacturing industry, regardless of the type of production. We gain knowledge of typical challenges and bottlenecks in the production process from our customers and then work with them to develop Smart RDM functionalities that increase process efficiency. What benefits do our customers in the ceramics industry derive from implementing the platform?
Before a finished batch of tiles arrives at the sorting plant, the raw material passes through several processing stages and machines like mills, mixing plants, presses, and the heart of the production process, the furnace. Each step generates costs – these are the costs of raw materials, the energy used, and the work of the operators and each stage can create losses. Their scale is easier to imagine, especially “against the background” of the size of the production machines: the mixers have a volume of several tonnes, and the length of the furnace is tens of meters. With such volumes, how can production be precisely monitored and losses avoided? Let us first look at the weak links in production in the ceramics industry.
Weak links in the production process
Customers have pointed out several such points to us.
● Catching production errors too late – often only at the next production stage.
● Lack of knowledge of what production stage a batch of tiles is.
● “Burning through empty minutes”. – The furnace is running but is empty.
● The machines are outdated – the simple design makes metering impossible.
● Negligence on the part of the operators and the inability to control them – especially when reports are not completed regularly.
It all starts with the operator.
One of the duties of the machine operator is to complete reports regularly. Unfortunately, it happens, especially on night shifts, that the employee “does” all the paperwork for the last half hour. “Paperwork” in the literal sense because the records of the machine’s work and all measurements are kept in the form of notes on cards or in notebooks. There is no way to keep the operators accountable for regularly completing the reports; as a result, there is a lack of step-by-step data on the production process. Real-time monitoring is out of the question in such a mode of operation.
The Smart RDM platform dictates the time to complete and send the report, so the operator must take a specific number of measurements per shift. The operator sends the data, and the system records it, creating an accurate and – notably – reliable history: the system can reject a report that is not completed according to standards. This is possible thanks to so-called forms, which allow data to be manually assembled in OSIsoft PI (we described them in a separate article). Depending on the machine, it is possible to partially replace the forms with a so-called auto-complete mode (machine readings are taken automatically, and the operator only enters the name, confirming the task).
The data is the starting point for the calculations made automatically in the system.
From paper factory to real-time monitoring
This way, the entire production can be transferred from the notebooks to the system, and all data will be stored in one place. From then on, you can keep track of current and historical production data from every stage. The more data we collect, the more accurate it is, and the greater the certainty that errors can be quickly caught, machines adjusted, parameters changed, and losses reduced.
The heart of production in the ceramics industry is the furnace, and it is the most costly, especially when it is operating without raw materials. Empty minutes bring the most significant loss, which is why it is essential to calculate precisely when a batch of tiles will leave the furnace and free up space for the next set. Such calculations are possible based on precise historical data – if the number of wafers that enter and leave the machine at each stage is given in advance. In the event of a possible loss, it is possible to determine the size of the loss and attribute it to the operator or hourly shift. Evaluating the efficiency of the furnace (and other machines) also means controlling gas and electricity consumption.
Smart RDM as a data integrator
We already know that Smart RDM enables monitoring of the production system and that the quality of this monitoring depends on the data that feeds into the system. Smart RDM is also a data integrator – it collects data from automation, production, and ERP systems. Thus, production monitoring is literally the monitoring of an order that comes out of the ERP system and is ‘mapped’ by Smart RDM to the different stages of production.
Communication between Smart RDM and ERP is bi-directional: RDM takes order data from ERP to produce a specific batch of tiles, then ‘exposes’ the data to ERP to feed the cost accounting module. In this way, we get a summary of the execution of the order (e.g., a particular batch of tiles had specific losses at specific stages, what was the cost of production, how many tiles were planned, how many were lost at distinct stages because they broke, a human error happened, production parameters were wrongly chosen, etc.).
The factory as it is
When production data is collected in notebooks or distributed in Excel, monitoring would have to take the form of a manager walking around the entire plant, from machine to machine. This is unlikely to happen. With the Smart RDM platform, the manager can see the whole factory through visualisation on a computer screen and click through all production stages up to the sorting plant. Admittedly, at this last stage, no machine or system can replace a human and assess whether a tile is perfect, whether it has a scratch, and whether to classify it as grade 1, 2, or a reject. We can, however, feed the information from the sorting plant into the system. In this way, a manager who is just looking at production from behind his desk will see in Smart RDM what batch number of tiles is in the sorting plant at any given time, what was there an hour before, what is just on its way and what is leaving the sorting plant.
Trolleys instead of conveyor belts – under RDM control
Although each industry faces typical challenges, companies can organise production in their way. We can then tailor the operation of the Smart RDM platform to individual needs and process specifics. For example, one of our customers in the ceramics industry uses self-propelled trolleys – these are used instead of conveyor belts. The trolleys are crucial for production at this plant, and their system can be likened to a bloodstream: the stock of tiles accumulated on the trolleys keeps production going.
The customer needed more control over this system, as information about the batch of tiles loaded onto the trolley was recorded manually on a piece of paper and passed from station to station. Now, all the information is provided by the Smart RDM platform and is visible in the system: which batch of tiles is on a particular trolley and which machine it goes to. We show precisely how the product goes through the production stages: from the moment the order number appears until the finished tile is burnished.
Other functionalities on request
Sometimes old machinery is used in factories, for example, in the processing plant. We encountered a situation where the raw material level in one of the giant tanks was measured manually using a rangefinder. We plan to modernise the taking of these measurements with the Smart RDM platform, which will calculate and report the status of the tank – based on its size and the number of tonnes going into it.
We can monitor any machine or so-called nest, i.e., the workplace of one operator. A nest can be a furnace, a press, etc. It all depends on how the client wants to report it.
Summary
How is production monitored at your facility? Do you see similarities to the process we have described? Please share your experience with us!