In the Siemens press shop on Vogelweiherstrasse in Nuremberg, where drives for mining and shipping among other things are manufactured, a total of nine different Schuler presses are in operation. These presses are to be equipped with Industrial Edge and digitalization solutions from Schuler.
The Industrial Edge solution developed jointly in the Schuler-Siemens project is, so to speak, in a box. Because the systems for Industrial Edge integration are fully assembled at Schuler. All the system hardware is pre-assembled in a control box with a SIMATIC industrial PC and the relevant interfaces. This "box" is installed and connected by Siemens. Schuler, uploads the applications to the edge Device from its Göppingen location, they can be kept up-to-date and added to at all times using the central Industrial Edge Management System. The edge Device provides machine data to the internal Siemens network, where it is evaluated and analyzed.
Schuler, from Göppingen, uploads the applications to the Edge Device, ensuring they are always up-to-date and complemented with the central Industrial Edge Management. The Edge Device provides machine data to the internal Siemens network, where it is evaluated and analyzed.
"WE TRUSTED IN THE COMPETENCE OF THE PROJECT TEAM THAT TOGETHER WE WOULD COLLECT ALL THESE NUGGETS OF INFORMATION AND DATA. IT WAS CERTAINLY A PIECE OF PIONEERING WORK, BUT BOTH SIDES HAVE BENEFITED ENORMOUSLY FROM IT."
All machines in the Siemens press shop have now been converted, and valuable insights from the machine data have already been gained. Tobias Grüner, who heads the Digitalization and Infrastructure department at Siemens Large Drives Applications, is responsible, among other things, for one of the central production facilities for large drives. One issue that concerns him and his team is wear and tear on machines and die. He says, ”This wear and tear is actually noticeable to the machine operators – for example, the sound of a press changes when the die becomes blunt. Using the data analysis via industrial edge, we can measure the press force curve and determine whether we are running our process well.”
Industrial Edge apps, running on a SIMATIC IPC227E, capture data from the press and transmit the results to the Schuler Cloud and the Siemens network. The compact solution can be easily integrated into existing systems and is now a standard part of most Schuler presses. In addition to the standard data capture applications, custom applications can also be realized on the Industrial Edge platform. These can then be centrally deployed and managed on the shop floor with just a few clicks via the Industrial Edge Hub and Management System. Comprehensive security measures ensure the data is protected from unauthorized access at all times.
After a complete mechanical and electrical modernization, a 50-year-old press is like new again.
Find out more
Visual Die Protection (VDP): a camera-based die monitoring system.
Find out more
More process stability: how to identify and document the causes of errors using the VDP Analyzer.
Find out more