August 2008 Edition

straight talk

MTConnect to shine at IMTS tech center

Open system offers easy data exchange

By Stan Modic

Some 90,000 potential buyers are expected to crowd into Chicago’s McCormick Place over the six-day International Manufacturing Technology Show from Sept. 8-13. Most will be plying the miles of aisles spread over all four halls searching for the latest piece of metalworking equipment to improve their productivity, quality, and profitability.

It’ll all be there, much of it appealing to today’s hot medical and electronics markets to crank out small, high-precision parts. For example, Bill Popoli, running the U.S. arm of IBAG, the Swiss spindle maker, tells me he’ll be showing a compact, high power, high-speed spindle directed at screw machines producing tiny medical parts.

Popoli claims that one customer, after installing a 30,000rpm compact spindle (most Swiss lathes come standard with 5,000 to 8,000rpm spindles), reduced machining time from 30 minutes per part to three minutes.

He sees more emphasis on cost and investment.

"We have to be more innovative and use whatever technology we have available to make us faster and better than the cheap-labor countries," Popoli tells me. He sees his customers "embracing technology to be more competitive in the world markets."

Another example: Mazak Corp. has squeezed its multi-tasking technology into a 58sqft footprint. Its Integrex i-150 is designed to handle small complex parts

A universal protocol

But the most exciting technological development at IMTS will be the first public demonstration of MTConnect. It is an effort launched by the the Association of Manufacturing Technology (AMT) more than a year ago to create an XML-based (Extensible Markup Language) open standard for advanced manufacturing data communications. This was done with the assistance of computer-industry experts and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The AMT seeded the project to the tune of more than $1 million. It is being steered by a technical advisory group of 14 companies representing both technology providers and end users.

AMT President John Byrd believes the effort, once completed, "will revolutionize manufacturing and enable companies to achieve productivity levels that could only be dreamed of in the past."

Paul Warndorf, AMT vice president-technology, explains that MTConnect "will allow devices and systems to send out data that can be read by any other device using the same standard."

The new-found technology will be open and royalty-free to insure wide acceptance.

John Turner, a member of the technical advisory group, sees the development evolving over multiple steps. Phase 1 provides the connection between devices through CNC and the capability of sharing data between them.

"It essentially allows someone to build an application that can interpret the information coming from a wide variety of devices," says Turner. "The application can query another, determine the type of tool, and what it is designed to do."

In Phase 2, MTConnect users will be able to write data that is being recovered and shared. Consequently, the host system will be able to control certain aspects of the CNC, such as on/off and remotely provide setup information relative to tooling, fixturing, and other aspects of the operation.

The "most exciting" aspect of the future of the MTConnect system, according to Turner, is the elimination of a host system.

"Information will be collected, shared and controlled across multiple devices similar to how it is done on a USB hub," he says. "So the controller (CNC) now becomes part of a network that becomes defined at the machine. This will allow machine tool builders to build entire applications on top of the connector protocols that are already in place for nearly every conceivable type of device."

"It is our expectation that the interoperability afforded by MTConnect will allow many third-party solution providers to develop software and hardware to make the entire manufacturing enterprise more productive," says Warndorf, who is spearheading the project from AMT (For more on MTConnect, log on to MTConnect.org).

He indicated any company interested in participating on the technical advisory group can contact him at PWarndorf@amtonline.org.

The members of the technical advisory group are reviewing the draft protocol standard, which is in its final stage of preparation. They will determine when the standard is ready for final release.

IMTS demonstration

The AMT, sponsors of the IMTS, has invited milling, grinding, and turning equipment exhibitors to participate in the MTConnect demonstration at the equipment exhibition. Machines from the various participating booths will be connected to display monitors in the Emerging Technology Center. Monitors will explain MTConnect and display data being collected from machines throughout the exhibition area.

Haas Automation Inc., cooperating with the MTConnect project, is also developing its own version of a universal machine tool protocol that it will demonstrate at IMTS. A Motoman robot and a Fastems pallet-loading system each will be integrated with a Haas machine tool via Haas’ protocol system it dubbed M-Net." The machines will also be tied to the MTConnect demonstration.

 

Kurt Zierhut, who heads up Haas’ development of its electronic projects, explains that M-Net is a communication method for connecting machine tools and other devices via a data of network collection and transfer and for machine-to-machine communication. The Haas system will be made available to all Haas machines that have an Ethernet port.

The protocol will also be at work in other booths throughout the exhibition. Several vendors will also be showing M-Net-based monitoring, planning, and integration tools.

Futuristic technology

Other new ideas will make this IMTS much more than a supermarket for metalworking equipment. The Emerging Technology Center will be the place where research laboratories and universities will showcase their new ideas, many of which will change the face of metalworking in the years to come. For example:

• The Machine Dynamics Research Lab of Penn State University will demonstrate a system that senses the force generated during precision grinding which permits improved process control and more accurately shaped parts.

• The University of New Hampshire will show a smart tool holder described as a "robust real-time, wireless sensor interface system that provides tool-tip sensor data for process condition monitoring during cutting."

• TechSolve, a Cincinnati-based manufacturing research operation, will highlight its Smart Machine Platform Initiative (SMPI), a three-year project with the goal of creating "first part correct" manufacturing capabilities. The SMPI goal is to tie together tool monitoring, process planning, machine tool metrology, on-machine probing, machine maintenance, an intelligent machining network, and a supervisory system to control the machining process (For more on Techsolve’s project visit www.techsolve.org.).

What do you think?
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