Industry 4.0

Fandis, together with other partners such as Hilscher, Deda Group, Mandelli, Pneumax and PTC, is participating in a common project demonstrating how Industry 4.0 principles can be integrated into all phases of the industrial automation process, presented at SPS IPC Drives in Parma (italy), held May 23rd to 25th.

What is Industry 4.0?

The term Industry 4.0 (or Industry 4.0) indicates the current trend of industrial automation to integrate new production technologies to improve working conditions and increase profitability and quality in industrial processes.

A very similar concept to that of the smart industry, which essentially develops in three phases:

• Production: new technologies dedicated to the production sector that allow all the elements in the game (operator, machines and tools) to cooperate.
• Services: IT and technical infrastructures that enable the integration of sectors within the same company as well as external (supplier-customer) with social infrastructure (roads, logistics, recycling, etc.)
• Sources of energy: attention to energy consumption, creating more and more efficient systems and reducing waste.

All this is done through cyber-based systems (CPSs) or physical devices that are closely connected to computer systems and can interact and collaborate with other CPS systems.

The role of Fandis in Industry 4.0

Fandis was present with its stand at SPS IPC Drives, but our presence was extended to the area dedicated to Know How 4.0 at Pad.4, participating in the presentation of an IOT application case, specifically digitizing a Mandelli machine tool. The issue of Fandis within this team of companies is the Thermal Management through new devices capable of acquiring, aggregating, storing informations from the machine on which they are housed. Already since April 27, a prototype developed by Fandis is working on a machine tool at Mandelli S.p.A. in Piacenza: this system acquires and controls the air conditioning of the enclosures and detectsb the efficiency of ventilation, relative humidity, the average temperature and that at the most critical point of the motor drive.

From design to machine learning

The complete application show in real time the efficiency and prediction of the criticalities generated by a CNC numerical control center: the data collection come directly from Fandis and Pneumax sensors and devices on board and collect in cloud, thanks to the Profinet network and Hilscher’s netIOT® solution. In addition, augmented reality experiences, linked to the machine, and operating states, enable real-time management of information to perform predictive, efficiency, monitoring and maintenance.

Both the increased reality and the study of mechanical criticalities are applied to a 3D model of the machine, realized with the CAD of PTC: in other words, design, modeling, connectivity and augmented reality are fully integrated thanks to continuous data exchange through a cloud.

Visitors had then the opportunity to appreciate how the principles of Industry 4.0 can be integrated in all phases of the industrial automation process, from design to real-time analysis and collection of data usage, information processing according to models generated through machine learning algorithms, so a machine capable of analyzing and improving itself.

If you want to know more, visit www.fandis.it.