Tag Archive for: machine monitoring

CADDIS Machine Monitoring Applications

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Machine Monitoring Systems

CADDIS Systems is not just another machine monitoring system.

 

CADDIS was initially developed to monitor CNC’s found in machine shops across the globe. Since then CADDIS has been deployed on many other types of machines to monitor not only utilization percentage but also a number of other key metrics that are critical to a company’s success.

 

Below is a sampling of the type of data that CADDIS is now monitoring for our customers:

• Overall Machine Utilization
• Cycle Count
• Cycle Time
• Excessive Downtimes
• Conveyor Speed
• Fluid Flow
• Fluid Levels
• Fluid Temperature
• Ambient Temperature
• Vibration
• Shift Start and Stop
• Humidity
• Preventative Maintenance tasks and schedule

 

Below is a sampling of the type of Machines CADDIS is now monitoring for our customers:

• CNC’s
• Robots
• Presses
• Conveyors
• Boilers
• Mills
• Parts Washers
• Permanent Mold Machines
• Pumps
• Compressors
• Spin Blasters
• Tumble Blasters
• 3D Printers
• Core Machines
• Molding Machines
• Dehumidifiers
• Wire Annealing Machines

 

Let CADDIS provide you with a simple solution for long term success!

CADDIS Reporting Capabilities Lead To Increased Profits

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Reports really only have value if people actually look at them and then act upon the information they have read.

 

CADDIS reporting is designed to provide actionable data for production meetings, initiatives, and analysis. CADDIS currently has three primary reports available that are aimed at three primary goals. These goals are to enable businesses to properly maintain their machines/assets, increase the overall efficiency of these assets, and also increase company profits.

Below is a summary of the reports that CADDIS currently offers, with other planned to be added in the near future.

CADDIS Reporting Samples

Excessive Downtime Report

The Excessive Downtime report shows each instance where a piece of equipment was down for longer than expected.  These entries include the start and end times when the event occurred and provides a duration for how long the downtime event was.

 

Figure 8.1.1 – Excessive Downtime Report

 

In addition, the report allows users to set why the machine was down for that long.  The possible reasons are as follows.

  • Man (i.e. there was no operator)
  • Machine (i.e. the equipment was in need of repair)
  • Method (i.e. an operator cannot keep a piece of equipment running due to not having the proper tools)
  • Material (i.e. no material was available to run the part)
  • Schedule (i.e. the equipment was not scheduled to run, or was scheduled incorrectly)
  • Maintenance (preventative maintenance was being done on the equipment)

 

Once a reason is set in the drop-down box, the downtime entry in the report will disappear.

Downtime Reason Drop Down

 

Downtime entries that have already had a reason assigned can be shown again by checking the Show Previously Marked checkbox.  If no additional entries appear after setting the checkbox, it may be that there have not been any entries that have had their reason set yet based on the time filter you have set.

 

Excessive Downtime Report Show Previously Marked Checkbox

 

As downtime reasons are set in the report, the bar chart at the top of the report will begin to populate.  There are two bars for each reason.  The purple, left-most bar is the number of occurrences of the reason.  The green line indicates the number of total hours the equipment was down for that reason.  This chart can be hidden at any time by un-checking the Show Chart checkbox.

 

Remote Montoring software CADDIS Systems sample of CADDIS ReportingExcessive Downtime Report Chart

Summary Report

The Summary Report option is only available above the equipment level in the company tree hierarchy, and reports on data from the current level down to the bottom of the company tree.  The sections of the Summary Report are outlined below.  Utilization color-coding follows the pattern outlined in the Overall Utilization section.

 

Sample report from CADDIS ReportingSummary Report

  1. Takes the utilization metrics from all equipment below the current level in the company tree, and combines them into one value.  Below the overall percentage, the value is an indicator showing the hours run versus the hours scheduled.
  2. Shows a breakdown of each group (department, facility, etc.) directly below the current level in the company tree.  This makes it easy to determine how departments and facilities are performing compared to each other.
  3. Equipment Exceptions:  When the No recent cycles (>=2d) tab is selected, devices on equipment that have not reported in for at least the last 2 days are listed.  Reasons for this can vary. Equipment can be powered down for maintenance, thus shutting off power to a device, or a device might have a network connection issue. This list can be used to help the maintenance department triage devices that need attention.  When the Underutilized (<80%) tab is selected, pieces of equipment that are showing less than 80% utilization are listed.
  4. Excessive Downtimes:  This shows the number of hours associated with excessive downtime in each department/facility below the current level in the company hierarchy.
    The threshold defining what constitutes excessive downtime can be set in the equipment management section of this guide.
  5. Downtime Reasons:  Pie chart showing the distribution of reasons why the equipment was down. This chart depends on the information provided by users in the Excessive Downtime report.

 

This information can be used to determine which facilities, departments, work cells, etc to focus on, but is very dependent on the type of equipment in a facility.  For instance, a CNC machine shop will typically have a smaller number of excessive downtimes than a molding operation that involves several manual steps by an operator.

Therefore, groups of equipment cannot always be directly compared.  Hovering your mouse cursor over each bar in this chart will show a tooltip with the hour values.  Downtime Reasons: Pie chart showing the distribution of reasons why the equipment was down.  This chart depends on the information provided by users in the Excessive Downtime Report.

A legend is provided on the right, showing the reasons that users are allowed to enter.  Hovering your mouse cursor over each slice in the pie chart will display the number of times that a reason was selected as being the cause of the excessive downtime.

 

Raw Cycle Data Report

The raw cycle data report is only available when at the equipment (lowest) level in the company hierarchy.

 

Sample of CADDIS Reporting

Raw Cycle Data Report

 

The table includes individual cycle information including when the cycle occurred, what the cycle time was, what the temperature (measured via thermocouple) was, and what tags (if any) are associated with the cycle.  The data in this table is set based on the time filters.  There is also an Export button that allows the data from the table to be downloaded for further analysis in applications such as Excel and Minitab. When the Export button is clicked, two new buttons will appear.  The first is JSON, and the second is CSV.

 

If in doubt, choose CSV because it can be directly used with Excel or Minitab.  Clicking the CSV or JSON buttons will present you with a save-as or open dialog in your web browser.  The filename of the downloaded file is encoded with the start and end timestamps of the data.

CADDIS Reporting can lead to savings for your business. Need more information on CADDIS Reporting? Contact us today.

How Can CADDIS Machine Monitoring Save Your Company A Lot Of Money? 

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“How can CADDIS Machine Monitoring Save My Company A Lot Of Money”? 

My immediate response to a customer when this question comes up is…How can CADDIS NOT save you money? Below are some very defined and proven ways of how integrating CADDIS into your production environment will immediately not only save you money but also make you money. Ultimately, CADDIS is considered a cost-effective machine monitoring software.

Cost-Effective Machine Monitoring

Machine Utilization: tracking the overall machine utilization percentage on a daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly basis will ensure that this machine has minimal downtime and is being utilized to its fullest potential.

 

Capital Improvement Expenditures: having a clear view of your overall utilization and efficiency of your entire operation will enable you to be in a much better position to either approve or disapprove large capital expenditures. Regardless of the industry, machines are expensive, and knowing how utilized a machine is can be the deciding factor in deciding if another one is needed or not?

 

Predictive Maintenance: with the ability to track key predictive maintenance indicators such as runtime, cycles, temperature, and vibration, companies are taking a proactive approach versus a reactive approach. CADDIS allows users to create maintenance schedules based on the key predictive maintenance indicators and then assign these tasks to those responsible. Over time large amounts of money can be saved because machines are serviced and maintained based on the key predictive indicators and not only when they either break down or it’s marked on a calendar, regardless of the machine even ran. Maintenance is critical to a company’s profitability, but over-maintenance can also be wasteful.

 

Accountability & Safety

Accountability: many of our CADDIS customers are very lucky to have such a dedicated and loyal workforce. However, there are those employees that may take a bit longer break, continuously have a late shift start, or just not properly maintain their equipment. CADDIS allows supervisors to better manage their team and also recognizes those employees that continuously meet or exceed their goals. CADDIS does promote accountability, but it also is a tool that gives the employee the motivation they sometimes need to hit their goals. In the end, the more employees that take accountability for their work the more revenue a business will generate.

Safety: now includes the need for social distancing, and pay closer attention to washing hands, facility cleaning, and sanitizing touchpoints in your factory, plant, warehouse, etc. How this relates to machine monitoring may sound complex but is actually very straightforward. The fewer employees your business has in a specific area means a lower chance of transmitting an illness. A way that many companies are adapting to this is by integrating a machine monitoring system that allows their employees to monitor operations remotely. While operators and shop floor personal are still needed on a day-to-day basis at their facility.

Overview

Many other employees such as the executive team, sales, marketing, scheduling, and IT can work either entirely remote or on a flex schedule that requires less time in an enclosed workspace with others. Machine monitoring gives these departments a visual overview of their entire operation. They will have remote access to all the data they need to effectively manage their responsibilities and monitor the job performance of the company, department, and individuals. Essentially, if you are interested in cost-effective machine monitoring, contact CADDIS Systems today. Call Us Today to increase machine efficiency and machine productivity.

 

Predictive Maintenance In Manufacturing

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predictive maintenance

 

According to a report from McKinsey Global Institute on the Internet of Things (IoT), Predictive Maintenance can lead to a savings of anywhere from $200 billion to $600 billion for manufacturers by 2025. Yes, this is spread throughout a large number of manufacturers that are producing a wide variety of parts and products, but it is still a HUGE number that cannot be ignored.

 

The goal of any Predictive Maintenance program is to develop a clear and efficient strategy that will improve Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) and ensure that machines are meeting all safety requirements. A successful Predictive Maintenance program and any Machine Monitoring Systems will enable not only your machines to stay running but also protect your most valuable asset, your employees.

 

In the past, Predictive Maintenance Programs have been deployed on a manual basis. Each machine has a specific schedule of when a service task needs to be completed. Once completed, the individual performing the task will make a note on a spreadsheet, checkbox, or report that confirms when and who this maintenance task was completed by. Unfortunately, when a shop, foundry, plant, or facility becomes busy, Predictive Maintenance can take a back seat to get parts out the door.

 

While this may make sense at the time, in the end many companies suffer the consequences when maintenance tasks are pushed down the priority list. It’s also very easy to simply forget when a maintenance task is due? Unless you have the luxury of having a specific individual monitoring a maintenance schedule and then enforcing the adherence to the maintenance schedule, you can also fall behind on maintaining your equipment.

 

The best way to overcome any issue related to Predictive Maintenance neglect is through the integration of a machine monitoring system. One such option is CADDIS Systems. CADDIS is designed to not only manage your machine utilization and OEE, CADDIS Systems also provides the ability for companies to deploy a Predictive Maintenance Program within the software which allows a company to build a history of Predictive Maintenance tasks completed. Those responsible for maintenance tasks receive a text or email alert when a task or service is due and then the ability to make a note of when the task was completed and provide any additional comments that relate to the task or machine serviced.

 

CADDIS Systems is a simple and cost-effective solution that will guarantee you a return on the investment. By integrating CADDIS Systems into your production environment you will see a number of benefits.

 

Just a few of these benefits include:

  • Fewer large-scale repairs and the number of all repairs will decline.
  • Increased overall machine productivity and life span.
  • Less capital investment by eliminating premature machine replacement.
  • Decreased downtime
  • Better project planning and scheduling as a result of machines continuing to run.
  • Increased safety for staff and all those exposed to the machines.

 

For more information contact Chris Moore, Marketing Vice President: chris.moore@lcm2m.com

Air Compressor Monitoring

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Machine Efficiency: Air Compressor Monitoring

If you are interested in machine efficiency, then air compressor monitoring is for you. Having the capacity to consistently track your machine’s progress is an effective method to monitor machine health and analyze real-time data.

In fact, Caddis Systems provides the perfect peace of mind to those businesses that rely on air compressors to perform a critical function for their business. Additionally, Caddis has multiple inputs allowing it to automatically detect machine status. This ensures that all data is streamed via the dashboard and can be monitored with ease and convenience. 

Caddis SystemsWhen air compressors are not performing properly, they can clearly become huge energy wasters. This is why air compressor monitoring software has a major impact on the amount of energy used. Furthermore, using preventative machine maintenance often saves on unnecessary downtime. 

Additionally, temperature monitoring allows the user to control process parameters or monitor machine health while analog input is user-configurable. All the data is streamed to the user dashboard for monitoring, and multiple digital outputs allow for visual/audible alarms to be fired. When a temperature threshold or machine downtime is detected, the user is immediately notified via text or email in addition to the analog alarms.

Simple System Set-Up

The system can be set up in minutes:
• Power up the device
• Connect device to network
• Provide input signal
• Log into the dashboard
• Start monitoring facility

The cost to integrate Caddis Systems into your company is minimal when compared to the lost revenue due to machine shutdown.

Here is a cost breakdown:

Device Cost: $1,500 per device (one time)
Data Storage & R&D Cost: $200 (per year)

For more information, please contact us today for a FREE DEMO.

Machine Preventative Maintenance

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 The Caddis device is capturing each machine cycle, as well as sending temperature data with alarms set “on” to send text/email if the temperature exceeds 140 degrees. The devices that are attached to the machines, and sending this data, are very robust, easy to integrate, and easy to scale throughout a facility which may have a variety of types/vintages of machines. 

Give us a call or click here to contact us for more info! 

 

machine monitoring