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WORLD OF INDUSTRIES 05/2018

WORLD OF INDUSTRIES 05/2018

Simplifying Maintenance

Simplifying Maintenance & Management through IIoT Innovation Press builder Eagle Press & Equipment Co in Windsor, Ontario, Canada is innovating Industry 4.0 press control not only for them - selves but for their customers, through the simplicity of machine mount I/O and the established automation technology of IO-Link. 01 More than 15 presses have been built and installed in North America with an IO-Link control architecture from Eagle Press & Flodraulic AUTOMATION Three years ago when Jamie Beneteau joined Flodraulic, controls contractor for Eagle Press, the Flodraulic/Eagle Press team wasn’t looking for a shift in their press control architecture. Machines were working, warranty issues were resolved and press customers were happy. Beneteau, now Controls Technician at Eagle Press, saw room for improvement, “each junction box would take a half a day to a day to build in the panel shop and then a half a day or more to wire and construct.” Andy Ritchie, Project Manager at Eagle Press, agreed, “In the past we had to wire every terminal in the junction box and had many sensor cable pass-throughs.” Each press had four major junction boxes around the machine: at the operator station, up in the crown, on the ram, and down in the pit with the hydraulic power unit. In addition, every sensor cable was built custom with field wireable connectors adding extra costs, and increasing the probability of wiring errors in the build phase or failure in-use for the end customer. For Eagle Press and Flodraulic, there were significant challenges from the junction boxes that had to be built to house the I/O. Terminal blocks, slice I/O, mounting, wiring, labeling, and testing of each junction box added extra costs and troubleshooting time for wiring errors or loose wire connections. This increased commissioning Author: Will Healy III, Balluff Inc, Florence, KY, USA, Strategic Marketing Manager, Greg Soden, Balluff Canada Inc, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Industry Manager time, decreased productivity time, or both. All of these issues translated to increased operating costs to both the press builder and customers purchasing the press. Successful improvements on the presses The team began looking for an I/O control solution that would reduce noise related issues, allow full integration into their existing control architecture using EtherNet/IP, allow full integration into any future control architectures as directed by the market (such as Profinet, EtherCAT and CC-Link IE Field as examples), address and reduce the challenges coming from wiring and junction box construction and provide their customer with a simplified system for troubleshooting and fewer connection point failures to reduce downtime, increase productivity, and improve OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). They committed to embrace new products and technologies to further the value of each new press and to continue researching incremental improvements on the presses. For many years, Eagle Press and Flodraulic based their successful press control architecture on the utilization of IP20 slice I/O over EtherNet/IP in the junction boxes. At first, they stayed with panel mounted I/O in the junction boxes, “We removed all of the holes in the panels with hardwired junction blocks mounted on the side of the cabinet. This way we had only a few pass-throughs,” Beneteau explains. “But we realized it didn’t make sense to have these blocks on the panel so 22 WORLD OF INDUSTRIES 5/2018

02 03 02 By utilizing EtherNet/ IP IO-Link masters in-lieu of the crown junction box, troubleshooting and wiring become easier to work with 03 With EtherNet/IP IO-Link masters and IO-Link slave I/O hubs, Eagle was able to completely eliminate the junction box in the pit - in addition they were able to improve troubleshooting with machine mount I/O and smart sensor diagnostics we moved them out onto the press.” The positive evolution of wiring solutions from individual wires to distributed junction blocks still had some of the limitations of their original design with “direct wiring having many problems and requiring a decent amount of troubleshooting work.” Benefits of IO-Link Beneteau, along with Greg Heyd, Control Systems Designer at Flodraulic, then proposed a new incremental control improvement to Ritchie, called IO-Link. “It was a big change for us in design, so we had to find the right project,” says Ritchie. But the value that could come from reducing wiring time and simplifying troubleshooting was of interest to the team. IO-Link is an open standard supported by over 120 component manufacturers to provide automation technology that is as easy to use in a factory as USB is easy to use with the PC. IO-Link was created to provide a simple platform for smart sensors to communicate with an automation controller. Not only does the sensor report its measurement or switching data but it can also communicate diagnostics and parameters. Working in a point-topoint master/slave architecture similar to USB, a pressure sensor’s parameters can be stored and re-downloaded upon replacement or configuration change. This makes the service and maintenance of the press dramatically easier for Eagle’s customers says Ritchie. Seamless integration of a multi-vendor solution With a wide variety of technologies available with IO-Link, Eagle Press was able to seamlessly integrate a multi-vendor solution that fits their needs and requirements. IO-Link pressure, level, and temperature sensors are used in a wide variety of applications on the press, for example in the lube, clutch and bolster control to monitor hydraulic fluid level, pressure, and temperature. Additional sensors were used to provide scrap chute door control, counter balance control, and hydraulic overload control. Shut height is precisely measured using an IO-Link linear position sensor from Balluff which reports measurement values in its respective engineering units (thousandths of millimeters) over IO-Link with no need to calculate resolutions or scaling. “We were able to virtually eliminate analog on the machine by implementing IO-Link,” says Ritchie. Traditional I/O devices like panel mount motor starters and machine mount I/O provided additional value in the electrical wiring of the machine. The motor starters are monitored and controlled by IO-Link. Beneteau found an additional benefit in moving to IO-Link motor starters. “We were able to eliminate more than half of the wiring of a traditional contactor and gain diagnostic nformation.” With machine mount I/O from Balluff, Ritchie mentions, “We’ve been able to eliminate a box on the crown, the ram box, and the lube box in the pit.” Beneteau adds, “And with the I/O hubs, we were able to get rid of fusing and breakers on the machine with the built-in short protection.” Effective and accurate diagnosis By utilizing IO-Link, troubleshooting is made more effective with diagnostic visibility down to the individual I/O point. Beneteau notes that this comes from a combination of machine mount I/O providing easy to use diagnostics and dramatically reduced wiring on a scale greater than 60 %. Production management can be improved by utilizing the diagnostics and data provided by the EtherNet/IP IO-Link masters and IO-Link slave devices. “The “IO-Link clearly provides a positive effect for manufacturers looking to increase production volumes and reduce downtime.” machine can now report causes of downtime, part counts, idle time, and which operator was on the machine for operator accountability,” explains Beneteau. According to Mike Hebert, Sales Manager at Eagle Press, “More customers are looking for information from the equipment like analytics, Industry 4.0, and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) capabilities.” Even critical data like OEE and downtime can now be reported easily from the press over Ethernet. Since the implementation of IO-Link for press control at Eagle, at least 15 presses have been built and installed throughout North America. Beneteau shares that “IO-Link cleaned up the look and created a consistent design of our machine. The IO-Link solution helped our machine be very modular for engineering, build, teardown, and re-commissioning.” Hebert adds “since the presses have moved to the Balluff IO-Link solution, this change in architecture has resulted in a significant reduction in related field service calls”. Photographs: ornaments fotolia, other Balluff www.balluff.com WORLD OF INDUSTRIES 5/2018 23

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