Finn-Power "Link" Software
Provides
More Efficient Production Management
 by
Andrew McCarlie
Applications Engineer
For many sheet metal fabrication managers, production control in their plants entails numerous steps and numerous personnel involved to move the order from the sales department to the input of the manufacturing data at the machine.
It is not uncommon for multiple orders
to arrive from the production planner/expediter simultaneously
to the work station (i.e. turret punch press, combination
machine, laser, etc,). When this occurs, many times the
floor supervisor or even the machine operator become
the decision makers on what jobs to run next. In many
cases, the next job selection depends upon such factors
as:
 |
What the operator
has available for tooling in the machine at that
time. |
|
What material is available. |
|
What is the easiest job to
run at that moment. |
Under these circumstances, the job selected
may not have the highest manufacturing priority. In addition,
often there is a feedback lag between what is happening
at the machine and the production planner. For many fabricators
this translates into lost productivity and increased
costs.
For most operations, there are four basic
steps in the manufacturing process from the sales order
to pushing the start button on the sheet metal fabrication
equipment:
| 1. |
The Issue of a
Bill of Materials (handled by an ERP/MRP system)
which is created as an order file. |
| 2. |
This order file is often directed
to a planner who breaks it down by component and
then places orders for material, issues work orders
for parts – which are then sent to a programmer
to create – or issues programs for parts. |
| 3. |
The planner then creates or
prints setup sheets for existing or new programs. |
| 4. |
The programmer then sends the
code and setup sheets to the machine. It is only
after this step when the decision making process
occurs. |
For many companies, the decision to streamline
and improve this process is often put on the back burner
due to the perceived high costs of special software and
customized hardware integration. However, this is no
longer the case with today's off-the-shelf software and
the standard Windows network interfaces. This technology
provides the ability to link between Finn-Power's NC
Express programming system directly to the MRP system
(import MRP file directly) and is offered in all Finn-Power
machines, along with large hard drives and an up-to-date
Windows operating system. All Finn-Power machines are
network ready.
The key to this semi automation of your
production control process lies with two programs that
reside in the MMC unit of your Finn-Power machine:
ControLink and PowerLink.
ControLink provides the direct
interface from a windows environment into the machine
NC control and PowerLink provides the interface with
your Cam system (NC Express ) as well as creating the
work queues of your production orders. If material
is available from an automated storage system, such as
a 10-shelf tower, 30 pallet FPS or larger Night Train
system, then PowerLink will automatically start each
new work queue selecting the material automatically from
the storage system stopping only when a manual tool change
is required.
With
the use of an off-the-shelf remote PC control program,
the programmer or the production planner can take control
of PowerLink and create the queues remotely. NC Express
also has the ability to make queue files automatically
from the nesting process if required, making the
entire queue at that point.
Using the optional remote
PC control software, the planner/programmer can monitor
the operation of the machine at all times and add
jobs to the queue as desired. They can also manage such
things as material inventory remotely in the larger
FMS systems. The Remote PC control software can also
record an entire shift operation at the machine which
can then be played back and reviewed.
PowerLink and ControLink also enable on-line manual access as well as diagnostic
functions along with tool management which will be
the subject of future tech tips articles.
The main
ControLink screen gives all the current tool and axis
information which again can be viewed remotely.
|
710
Remington Road 
Volume
14 Issue 1 -
July 2004