Measurement Monitoring

MEASUREMENT MONITORING

The monitoring and supervision of production processes are becoming requirements perceived by an increasing number of companies, even those of smaller dimensions. TQM Itaca has developed the ITALARM software application which allows statistical alarms to be monitored in real time, useful both as an overview for the Quality/Production Manager and as an alarm signalling and consultation system for the production lines.

In the example screenshot three monitored emplacements are displayed on the left side of the screen and two of them are in alarm state.

Ingranometro. Three open batches: the first shows an important alarm (Blue), the second is OK (Green), the third shows a critical alarm (Red).

Profilometro. One open batch: OK (Green).

Linea 1. One open batch with critical alarm (Red) on characteristic 5 - Oscillazione di F rispetto ad A

In the right side there are three charts: Histogram, Control Chart and Data Table of characteristic 5 - Oscillazione di F rispetto ad A, with an open window showing the cause of the alarm and the remarks/events posted by the operators.

Based on a Server-Client architecture, Italarm monitors all the data written into an Itastat MS-SQL database by an Italarm Server, in which all the workstations and critical characteristics to be kept under real-time control are configured. Any number of Italarm Clients can be configured, enabling fast consultation of the acquired measurements and efficient management of statistical alarms.It’s also available an automatism which permits to print reports containing the data of the last performed measure.

The statistical alarm information can be announced on the shopfloor in different ways:

visual or acoustic signalling.

digital signal to the monitored machining center to provide either automatic correction or machine halt with a request for operator intervention to re-qualify the production process (calibrate/replace tools, adjust parameters etc.).

Furthermore the criticality of statistical alarms can be set according to three levels: critical, important or secondary.

The diagram on the right shows a data collection and monitoring network proposed by TQM Itaca. Data arrive from the metrologic room and/or from the production line. In the metrologic room data are collected by means of Itaconv, an application which converts files created by instruments with a dedicated PC and writes control plans and measurements into the Itastat 6 database.

On the production line data are collected by Itastat Measure workstations which save data to the same DB. In the Italarm Server, all batches to be monitored and the criticality levels of statistical alarms are configured. By means of Italarm Clients it’s possible to “remote” the monitoring allowing efficient reactions to alarms. Using specific I/O interfaces, it’s also possible to directly intervene on the machining centers, for example by halting the machine producing rejects.