Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1124788
JUNE 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 13 the 80% of the time that the machine wasn't running, and that's the time that you don't get data from the machine, so how are you sup- posed to know? That's the value of the MES cycle because maybe the problem was the materials, a changeover, the schedule, or that the customer doesn't want anything or there's maintenance going on. How can we optimize that to reduce 10% of the 80%, which is so much more value than 10% of the 20%? Matties: That makes a lot of sense. Then, you're down to 70% rather than 80% and keep driv- ing that number to as low as possible. Ford: Exactly. People come up to us and say, "Aegis helped produce CFX and have given away their machine interface technology. They're crazy." We have all of these software companies popping up now reading CFX and everything else. They haven't seen this big picture. This is the big picture that we started five years ago with our FactoryLogix software that is completely made from scratch for IIoT, data-specific purposes. We want to be a friend of the machine vendor and help and encour - age this exchange of data collectively rather than competitively as we see other companies doing it. Matties: And people tend to think of automa- tion as the machines, and that's the mechani- zation of a process. The automation is driven by the data, and what you're automating is the data. The machines just read the data. Matties: We're looking at streamlining pro- cesses. Automation is a part of that, but what thought process should they follow? Ford: I've always been suspicious about any- body who says, "Optimize your process," because nobody defined the process. If you think about your process as a machine, it's easy to do that. You bring in your Lean experts and start to analyze the waste and the value stream mapping, etc., but the process has dependen- cies. You have a machine before and after as well as materials coming in, so is that part of the process? I would say it is because, with- out those under control, you can't do anything else. That has been the fundamental concept of manufacturing for quite a long time. Your final assembly line does not stop no mat- ter what, and to guarantee that process contin- ues in the most efficient way, all of your depen- dencies have to be controlled to supply in time. I see all of this optimization as being a part of that. That's where Aegis comes in because we have this unique, holistic program where we have one database over the entire manu - facturing process—quality, materials, execu- tion, everything. We can build the context of all of the different data points coming and pro- vide that information as a tool for those who want to optimize their process, however they define it. They may want to do the machine, do a group of products on the line, or include all aspects of the factory, maintenance, and mate - rials. The nice thing about it is you can do all of those with the data that we provide, and we're not going to tell you how to do it. CFX doesn't say, "This is the way you do OEE and measure this." We're providing that contextual information from the machines. One thing that people don't understand with the analysis of data is that in manufacturing, it's not as simple as taking the data from the machine and analyzing it. That's the wrong thing to do because the machines aren't run- ning most of the time. The time that you're optimizing is 20% of the day, in which the machine was running. You improved that by 5%, but it doesn't make much difference. What you need to focus on is We want to be a friend of the machine vendor and help and encourage this exchange of data collectively rather than competitively as we see other companies doing it.