PHARIS^® MES for metal machining and tooling

MES PHARIS^® make use of direct connection to technological equipment. It is intended for technological data collection and their evaluation. MES PHARIS^® allows planning of production, monitoring of individual orders and detail recording of their progress. MES PHARIS^® can control serial production of precise metal components, small-lot production or order production.

The main task of the PHARIS^® manufacturing system in metal working and tool shops is the increase of production process efficiency, electronization of the accompanying documents of the order and arrangement of production process of the order (Traceability, Electronic recording of the order). MES PHARIS^® serves as a tool for proving the quality of final products as well as individual operations of partially processed production including documenting of materials used and staff participating in production operations of the order.

Using the operator terminals

Before introduction of the PHARIS^® manufacturing system into production, the moulding plant must be equipped with operator terminals, offering the service staff with the following functionalities:

• On-line monitoring of technological and production data of the CNC machine (number of manufactured pieces, number of cycles, time of cycles, …).
• Production reporting (numbers of products, including unmatched production and type of non-matching).
• Setting the data for keeping the evidence of machines maintenance (data on service interventions).
• Monitoring of system alarms (possibility of automatic sending of messages to e-mail, SMS, pager).
• Displaying the documentation connected with currently running operation of the order (code books, photo documentation, drawings, …).

The user interface of the operator terminal is designed with maximal simplicity and it includes only basic elementary functions necessary for the operators. The optimal design of the terminal interface arranges maximal possible reduction of indirect times for work with the system. The service staff for the terminals is not required to be PC literate. We can easily adapt the user interface of the operator terminal „to your measure“. The operator terminals are placed in each physical location (CNC machine) or production spot (group of CNC machines). The terminal may be a usual office PC, mini PC or industrial PC with different levels of coverage (resistance against dust, spraying water, …). A popular solution includes use of industrial terminals with touch screens. The operator terminals may be connected to the network via the Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

RFID or barcode

An important factor for making the production process more efficient and arrangement of minimisation of faults caused by the service staff is the introduction of the RFID technology (radio frequency identification) or barcode technology.

RFID or barcode readers (wire or wireless) may be connected to the terminals placed at the production spot respectively it is possible to use PDA with a reader with simultaneous use of Wi-Fi connection.

Fields of use of automatic identification in moulding plants:

• Service staff login to the terminal.
• Identification of packaging units.
• Identification of unmatched production types.
• Identification of printed documentation.

Connection to CNC machines, sinking erosion machine, wire erosion cutting, milling machine, measuring devices, monitoring of production premises

Direct inter-connection of the PHARIS^® manufacturing system and technology depends on the type of communication supported by a concrete device.

Samples of technological equipment connection:

• Connection to the existing control system of the equipment.
• Connection via the protocol of the equipment, the most common communication standard.
• Connection via the terminal board.
• Additional equipment of the machine with sensors. We are able to equip any device with additional sensors for scanning of required features.

The manufacturing system PHARIS^® is open even for communication with the surrounding devices (conveyers, robots, …), including monitoring of production premises (temperature, environment humidity).

Interconnection with the ERP system

MES PHARIS^® bilaterally communicates with the enterprise systems (ERP). It takes definitions of technological procedures (recipes and their operations), materials, raw materials, production orders from the company system. And vice versa, i.e. in the direction to the ERP system, MES PHARIS^® provides information on the course of the order production, start and termination of individual operations of the technological procedure, real number of identical products, real consumption of raw materials, number and types of disparities.

The company UNIS, a.s. has long time experience with implementation of communication of MES PHARIS^® and ERP systems (Navision, SAP, KARAT, Lotus Notes, K2…).

Electronic operation diary, maintenance

The MES PHARIS^® includes also administration of production equipment and their events. The production equipment may be any technology – CNC machine, sinking erosion machine, wire erosion cutting, milling machine, injection moulding machine, conveyer and others. The electronic operation diary is available on each operator terminal. The individual statuses of production devices are automatically transferred to the operation diary and a part of them is entered by the operator or the service technician.

Available functionalities of the module „Equipment Administration“:

• Automatic evidence of the number of moto-hours.
• When repairing the service equipment, the service technician has available a tool that allows him to see the history of repairs.
• Each production device may be connected with enclosed files (instructions for use, service sheet, calibration sheet, technical sheet, photo documentation of the equipment, schemes of connection and others.).
• Planning the terms of calibration, maintenance, adjustments for each device.
• Automatic notification of the selected user on planned event or alarm (in the form of an e-mail, sms, client) well in advance. These events are further registered and kept in the electronic operation diary.
• Automatic recording of machine statuses in the operation diary when using connection to the production device (machine in operation, in fault, …).

Orders planning

MES PHARIS^® offers the planning module that is based on pre-defined technological procedures, with specified supposed time for individual operations, needed materials and raw materials, types of equipment participating in given operations and profession groups including estimated demands. The user may select a concrete device from a list, representing the given type based on the technological procedure.

The system displays to the user in graphic form the already planned and in-progress orders on time axis and calendar, showing the individual operations milestones. The system warns the user of critical spots and allows a change of individual orders plan in graphic interface of the system in a form that is simple for the user.

In the course of planning, the system warns the user of exceeding available production capacities:

• Time needed for the order finishing (possibly milestones – operations). 
• Raw materials availability on stock.
• Capacity of equipment needed for individual operations finishing (CNC machines, milling machines, assembly, ...).

The system draws supposed necessary production capacities from the definition of the technological procedure. The module Planning of the MES PHARIS^® production system closely co-operates with available information in the company information system ERP.

Production process guide

Manufacture in the production spot may be variable. Sometimes it is a simple act that permanently repeats. But there also exist some cases when it is necessary to perform several consequent operations (moulding, painting, assemblage, ...) on one production spot with an exactly specified procedure. Referring the individual procedures it is necessary to monitor parameters that are automatically collected from the technology or manually collected by operators.

Thanks to the intelligent guide through the production process, the staff is guided step by step. The process significantly improves the operator´s efficiency and reduces the possible percent of his/her mistakes.

One of the samples may be an operation related to approval of the first good piece of production. The parameter of this operation may be the number of pieces needed for reaching the first good piece.

In the course of production there gradually develops a complete electronic batch record – Electronic Batch Record (EBR), containing all and any real data connected with production and collected on manual or automatic basis. The data is preserved for consequent assessment as well as a proof of production (for example for regulatory authorities or client audits).

In relation to documentation of each order there may also be automatically respectively manually inserted the values from laboratory devices, including spectrophotometers, gloss meters, shredders and other, respectively records on established alarms in the course of given batch production.

Monitoring of persons on work site, reporting

MES PHARIS^® records login and logout of an employee to the production work site. Several users may be simultaneously login to one production work site. Login is performed using the personal bar code, user name and password or using the RFID chip. The system user with appropriate authorisation has the possibility of monitoring the currently login workers on the basis of selected production work site or he/she may search via the selected employee the production work site where the employee is currently login. Detailed statistics are available in the module Key production Indicators (KPI).

Fields of use of the function Monitoring of persons:

• Assessment of presence of the staff on work site, reporting, control tool for in-time start and finishing of working hours.
• Monitoring of work of adjusters and service technicians, reporting, detailed overview of real service times of technicians in individual production work sites.

Benefits of application of the PHARIS^® manufacturing system in production

• Making more efficient the production process and optimisation of continuity of production operations from the order receipt up to putting the final product or semi product on stock.
• Easy and fast monitoring of partially processed order.
• Replacement of pre-printed accompanying forms with forms in electronic form.
• Possibility of operative efficient planning of orders.
• Direct connection to technological equipment.
• Automatic setting of the CNC machines, central store of NC programs.
• On-line communication with ERP systems.
• On-line overview of partially processed order, overview of finished operations.
• Simplification of work of operators in individual work sites (the paper dispatch notes replaced with form in electronic form). Easy reporting of production directly at the CNC machines.
• On-line control of quality and stability of the production process, including a view of the history. Possibility of technological data finding including responsible persons participating in a concrete order (batch).
• On-line monitoring of login persons in the work site.
• Documenting of production and production procedures for the needs of audits. Automatic development of an electronic record of the order (batch genealogy), protocols.
• Immediate signalling of production interruption – automatic sending of warnings by e-mail, SMS to defined persons.
• Automatic keeping of electronic operation diaries, maintenance administration.
• Production sources savings – mainly in overhead times of operators and persons responsible for reporting. Fast and quick reporting of production.
• Easy availability of documentation on operator´s work site (code books, drawings, photo documentation, training…)
• Automatic notification of defined persons of approaching end of the order for in-time start of works on the next order (instruments and material preparation).
• All the functionalities of MES PHARIS^® available via the lean client (Internet Explorer, Mozilla).