Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/960594
62 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2018 year's IPC APEX EXPO, Pillarhouse demon- strated the base system, which they did in six weeks. Working with the CFX team this year, the company was able to put together a demonstration in four days. "We implemented all the modifications on one selective system, over a four-day period. And we have been running live for the last two weeks and showing this information. It's very simple and very easy to inte - grate and work with," says Simon Smith, marketing manager at Pillar- house. "We were introduced into CFX only about four weeks before the show, by Michael Ford of Aegis Software," said David Fenton, group customer support manager of pick-and-place provider Europlacer. "He presented to the wider management team at Europlacer, and we all felt that we needed to be involved in Industry 4.0. We've been inves - tigating it for over a year. Until now, we real- ized that there was no standard. People were talking about Industry 4.0, but, nobody really knew what it was. People were advertising 4.0-ready, and we thought that can't be right because there is no standard to be ready for. So, when Michael spoke to us about CFX, we could really see that somebody had put a lot of work into trying to create a true standard—and Aegis made it very easy for developers like ourselves to be part of this demonstration. They created a software developer kit to be part of this demo, with very easy instructions and methods. We decided that we needed to do this, so we set our R&D team to work. Within 48 hours, we had a test running with the Aegis server and messages from our software were being allowed, interpreted, and relayed back. After another week, we modified our machine software, and we were then running through live demo. So, within a week—we went from zero to soft - ware that is running correctly; Aegis helped us with that, and Michael especially. Here at the show, we have both machines, the Atom 4 and the iineo, both uploading livestream data to the CFX cloud server at the show." "Four weeks ago, we know nothing about CFX. And here we are today with a fully working model. We think CFX is the way to go. I know there are some other standards out there, but the easier it is made for the R&D team to write and code software, I think the more people will get on board with it. We took CFX seri - ously as a company and wanted to not miss this opportunity at APEX to show that Europlacer is willing to put our R&D efforts into new things; we're not standing back and watching it happen around us. Because when it does happen, it will be another tick box on the tender sheet. If we can't tick it, we may not get the order. So, that's why we jumped into it when we knew about it. It is important to get as many vendors' end users and software companies involved so that the industry can all talk the same language and make it easier, according to Smith. "There is no such thing as a production line that is supplied by a single hardware vendor; that does not exist. Multiple people are doing multiple things. CFX brings them all together and makes it a very simple to understand that everybody can use not only as a hardware vendor, but as an end user. You can be a head of production for a multina - tional company, and you can see line status, in any factory anywhere in the world. But the same system could also send an SMS message to a technician in a factory and tell them your machines are about to run out of a commod - ity. Those are a really good way of putting everyone together." "This demo is to prove to the industry that no matter how big or small an equipment provider is, they can easily adopt this particular standard," said Khoo Yak Hua, R&D manager at vision inspection company ViTrox Corporation Bhd. According to him, CFX is a very flexible and easy to use format and proto - col, and the company only took a few days to create the whole demo. David Fenton Simon Smith