Implement OEE The Easy Way

OEE

Jul 14

Our post about upgrading PLC hardware generated a lot of discussion. Many companies are ready to roll out updated systems, but are still waiting for hardware to show up, or they want to see shorter lead times before making a purchasing decision.

It can be scary to go all in when buying new PLC hardware to upgrade your entire system. But, if you have legacy hardware (made before 2010), you might be missing out on some amazing new technology.

By continuing to rely on legacy hardware:

It will be more difficult to integrate your production scheduling system with your plant floor.
You could be locked into an older SCADA platform that can’t connect to your business systems.
Managing recipes and work orders with an ERP System integration will not be an option for you.
Calculating Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and using it to improve your production yields will be much more difficult.

The Two OEE “Easy Buttons”

Without access to the latest and greatest hardware, there are two low cost, highly functional options you can use right now to gain the power of OEE in your facility.

Press “1” for Communications Upgrades

Depending on which PLC hardware you’re using, upgrading your communications infrastructure may be the easiest approach to get OEE for your process. For many legacy PLC platforms (Allen Bradley’s PLC-5 or SLC-500, Siemens S7-200, S7-300, or S7-400, or any number of PLCs supporting Modbus serial communications) a popular option is using a Prosoft gateway to translate data from your PLC to your SCADA system.

These units are easily installed in an existing panel. They connect to your PLCs with native communication protocols such as DH+, ControlNet, Profibus, Modbus Serial, etc. and translate the data to your SCADA platform with modern protocols like OPC-UA, Ethernet IP, or Modbus TCP.

Another option is a Red Lion Data Station Plus device which can act as the bridge between your PLC and SCADA system. While Prosoft offers gateways to communicate with specific PLC hardware, the Data Station Plus has over 300 built-in protocols along with the ports for connecting to many different types of devices. It is complete with a built-in web-server so you can access the data from any system—and in a pinch, it could even be used as a local HMI when you need to control or monitor your data.

In the next section, you’ll see how you could also use the groov lineup of products from Opto 22 to act as communication gateways in some instances. While it may take more work to implement the protocol conversions and the hardware you can connect to may be a more limited list, a groov RIO will provide built-in I/O that you won’t find on the Prosoft or Red Lion options. These reasons—and others we’ll describe in the next section—make Opto 22’s groov products attractive for communications upgrades.

Once your protocol conversions are in place, getting the data into your SCADA system is straightforward using the built-in drivers. Then, calculating OEE is as simple as collecting your downtime reasons, cycle time, and quality data, then running the calculations. Note that you may need to adapt your existing PLC code to get the right data for calculating OEE, but you’ll also need to do some of that work regardless of how the data gets into your SCADA system. We’ll focus on those topics in other posts.

Press “2” to See the Future

As mentioned above, another common approach is to start with an Opto 22 groov RIO (or many depending of them, on your project) as the basis for your modernization initiative.

The RIO’s built-in I/O provides the ability to tie new sensors into your line. For OEE, this could be current transformers to read running status and speed feedback from your motors, photo eyes to track infeed and outfeed counts as well as cycle time, and even energy monitoring to learn how much running your equipment costs at any given time.

The RIO approach won’t disrupt your existing hardware in any way, yet it will still provide valuable information for a minimal cost of hardware, sensors and installation. Then, you can connect the groov RIO to your SCADA system and you have all of the data you need for monitoring OEE.

An additional benefit of using a groov RIO instead of a Prosoft or Red Lion device is you can build complex logic on the groov RIO itself for PLC functionality—without needing to buy more PLC hardware.

A bigger benefit of choosing the groov RIO approach is that when you eventually upgrade your legacy hardware, the groov RIO can remain in place within the larger control system. You won’t lose any data or functionality from your initial investment, and it will continue to provide your company even more value as part of a larger process control system.

Wrapping Up

At Corso Systems, we have implemented all the solutions we’ve described above to help companies (across many industries) gain more value from and insight into their processes—without a huge capital expenditure or costly shutdown for new hardware installation.

As we described in last week’s post, it is still important to upgrade your PLC hardware into modern times before it causes unexpected production outages. That said, with new communication gateways to get data into your SCADA system along with modern hardware like a groov RIO, you can have the best of both worlds while waiting for new PLC hardware to show up!

If you have any questions on how you can use these approaches in your facility, please reach out and let us know! We’d be happy to show you what we have done for other companies and how we can help you get the most from your process!