Optimizing connectivity

Aerospace manufacturing is a competitive business, where companies with the lowest price tags and the highest production quality will win bidding contests. Those that maximize productivity while minimizing downtime are the most successful, and machine connectivity plays a direct part in that success.

Okuma Principal Engineer Bob Baldizzi says now is the time for manufacturers to optimize their connectivity because the aerospace industry is booming. Currently, more than 20,000 commercial jets operate globally, and that number is expected to double in 20 years. Many aircraft are at the end of their life cycles, so production demand is spiking. Plus, Baldizzi adds, “Airbus and Boeing are building planes in the U.S. and require a huge supply chain to support their production.”

Updating machine connectivity will increase a company’s competitiveness in gaining jobs.
 

Technology advances

For decades, machine tool controls were operated independently of each other. Operators did not have a way to streamline different data scattered along the shop floor, but advances in machine connectivity have accelerated dramatically in the last 20 years at Okuma, a CNC machine tool company based globally in Japan, with western hemisphere headquarters in Charlotte, N.C.

Okuma first started to gather data from machines in the early 1990s, but collection took a lot of time. Manufacturers would have to connect an external PC to a machine using a special cable that could extract data. Then, they would have to repeat that process for every job required of the machine, and add the data to a file for the part. There was no way to build a network of information for users to reference.

Since then, computer technology has grown tremendously. Interfaces have moved from mode-based controls – another time-consuming ritual, requiring a user to move from screen to screen to input settings – to process-based intuitive interfaces. The most recent offering from Okuma to enhance machine connectivity is the OSP P300, which Kevin Kraieski describes as a sort of paradigm shift in ease and efficiency.

“This new OSP-P300 control was a big change from what Okuma customers and distributors were used to using,” the senior application engineer says. “From the OSP-500L all the way through the P200L CNC control, there was very little difference in the main functional layout.”

Designed for multi-tasking machines, lathes and milling machines, the OSP-P300 has one operation interface where users can centralize all tool data in one place. Kraieski lists five benefits of the easy operation run screen:

• Creates an operation system based on operation workflow
• Users can complete most work without switching screens
• Tool data is shared between machining for one-touch IGF and collision avoidance (see sidebars)
• Expands manual machine operation functions
• Creates tool offsets only for the positions operators are using

“The ultimate goal is to have a pedigree for a particular part that was machined by a particular company,” Baldizzi says. “This data can be referenced to review part life and performance.”

Software

The information operators need depends on what job they are completing. The OSP-P300 provides a variety of available data including coolant temperature, coolant flow, ambient temperature, gage data, part identifier, and program revision number. Baldizzi says the OSP-P300 has “virtually no limits on data points that can be read or collected. Most aerospace guys are blown away by the data points we have to offer as opposed to what’s available from other controls.

“Since we use Windows in the background, interfacing is very easy,” he adds. “We use Windows API strategy to pass data to/from our operating system and put the data where it’s needed. The end result is a data stream that can populate virtually any database or spreadsheet that our customers can dream up.”

Okuma also has staff available to discuss what data points are important to customers and advice them on additional possibilities that they may not have considered.

Data is typically collected through USB connection or Ethernet, allowing for easy integration between the factory floor and business channels.

The Windows-based open architecture platform makes installing PC applications easy and convenient. Tooling lists, setup spreadsheets, process documents, and how-to videos are all available in one location. Manufacturers can also integrate new capabilities into the CNC as they become available without a costly overhaul.

Okuma America Corp.
www.okuma.com/americas