Like any industrial equipment manufacturer, Mazak uses its own production facilities as an opportunity to test, learn and innovate with the aim of improving how its machine tools and solutions work in a factory. At a recent visit to the company’s Florence, Kentucky headquarters, engineering.com toured Mazak’s iSmart factory, which is where the company builds Mazak machine tools in the USA. In the iSmart factory, the company has implemented several smart industry 4.0 solutions using technology such as MTConnect monitoring, robotics and automated racking and retrieval systems.
Surprisingly, the most exciting part of the tour was a bare concrete pad and some half-assembled racking. This area of the factory is still under construction, but will soon be a new automated production line using monorail robots, automatic tool presetting, six Mazak machining centers and an automated storage and retrieval system called the SMS, or smart manufacturing system. This new line will replace eight machines with just six, with robots delivering tools and workpieces to the machines. It will handle not only 48 unique part numbers, but also three different sizes of pallets.
Engineering.com spoke with Kevin Sekerak, assistant manager and Ben Schawe, VP manufacturing at Mazak America about this new line, what’s going into it, and how it will work.
The SMS line will machine castings for the Mazak machine tools made at the KY facility. The project is slated to be complete March 2020.
“We've got six new machines coming. There will be two HCN6800 machines, which is a horizontal machining center with 630-millimeter pallet. Then three of our HCN8800s, which is another horizontal machining center with 800-millimeter pallets. And then we have an Integrex E1250 V8, which is a multitasking machine that will have a 1000-millimeter diameter pallet, a round pallet. That machine can do turning operations as well as milling operations,” said Schawe. “All of these machines will be connected with a tool transportation system with a centralized tool hive in the tool room, and a monorail robot which will carry tools to the machines to replace the tooling on the machines as needed. The entire line will be connected with a 235-pallet stocker system, divided up to handle the three different size pallets that we have. And then one stocker crane robot that is able to handle all three sizes of these pallets will bring them to the appropriate machines.”
The next question about this highly automated line is how raw castings will be input into the system and how finished parts will be output. The answer is the automated storage and retrieval racking system (ASRS). According to Schawe, the line requires minimal human labor to operate, but human workers will load castings into the system from the casting yard and install raw material castings on the machining fixtures.
“Castings will be loaded in from the casting yard into a loading station and stored in the raw material racking system. The computer system that's running the line will then bring the correct machine pallets and the correct raw material castings to operators at four load/unload stations,” said Schawe. “They'll use a small monorail crane to lift the castings off the pallet from the material center, load them onto the machining fixture, and then at that point the machining fixture will be picked up by the stocker crane, and loaded in the racking system until scheduled to be machined on the machine.”
Operators will also perform gauging of components as they come off the line, and re-enter any parts which need to be re-machined into the system. Another worker will manage the toolroom.
“Each of the tools will have an ID chip embedded in it that has an ID number, so when the tool is put into a presetter it reads that ID chip and lists up the bill of materials on a computer screen for the tool. The operator in the toolroom will then set the length, diameter information. That tool is then put into the hive system, and as needed will be brought by a monorail robot to the machines. At the machines, a sensor will read the ID chip number, and the data about that particular tool will be transferred from the tool room computer into the NC, as far as tool diameter, tool life, etc.,” Schawe explained.
After parts leave this SMS line, explained Sekerak, they’re put back into the material center until they are brought to the casting paint area. After paint, the castings are delivered to unit assembly to be assembled into sub-assembly components for the machine tools.
Controlling the SMS Line
“Each of the machines have an NC called Mazak smooth control. Smooth control is Mazak’s conversational programming system,” said Schawe. “There is also a cell controller that will coordinate the raw material, what raw material needs to be loaded into the material center, coordinating those material pallets to be brought to the load/unload station based on the schedule that's in the computer, and bringing the process pallets down to the load/unload station as well. So, coordination of two stocker systems to coordinate the raw material along with the fixtures to be brought down for the operators to load/unload. The cell controller is going to be running the scheduling and coordinating the materials on the raw materials system.”
Mazak has partnered with Murata Machinery for the stocker system. “Mazak has done a lot of pallet stack systems in the past, so we use our experience on the machine process side, while Murata helps on the raw material side and provides more of a warehousing software solution. The partnership allows both of our companies to utilize our strong points in our software and ensures the different software tools can communicate and operate together,” explained Schawe.
Offline Programming Increases Uptime
“We're going to be using a Mastercam software that can import the 3D model of the part and create a program of that. Then that program can be downloaded directly to the cell controller. And then as the machine tool needs that particular program, the cell controller then downloads that directly to the NC of the machine,” said Schawe.
“So, we can import the 3D model of the tools, the fixtures, and the parts, and the software then programs that completely so that the part can be basically virtually machined so that you can look at any fixture issues, tooling issues and so forth. That way, when the program then is downloaded to the machine tool, there's very little test cutting time because most of the problems have already been solved in a virtual world with the 3D models of the tool, the product, and the fixturing as well.”
SMS: Smart Manufacturing System
So, aside from the robots, machine tools and software systems that make the SMS run, what makes it so smart? According to Schawe and Sekerak, data collection and analytics will also play a role, monitoring the health of the machines and helping to deliver optimal OEE.
“On this line we're incorporating a lot of different sensors, spindle monitoring, cooling sensors, along with any type of signal from the machines are all going back to data collection so that we can look at the machines, look at the data, see if there's ways we can improve it, do some predictive analysis where we can predict failures of spindles and so forth based on benchmarks that we have in the systems now,” described Schawe. “There's a lot of different new sensor technologies going to be incorporated in this system as well.”
The iSmart Factory as a Testbed and a Showroom
In addition to being the place where Mazak builds many of its machine tool products, the Kentucky iSmart factory also provides a testbed for the company to develop and improve factory automation solutions and learn how Mazak machines and systems actually work in a real production environment. Touring the facilities of almost any industrial equipment manufacturer is much the same, giving a look into the cutting edge of industry 4.0 manufacturing.
The Mazak SMS, including the robots, ASRS and machines, is currently available as a product from Mazak. Visit the Mazak website to take a look.