Real-time Enterprise-wide OEE From the Shop Floor

Today’s Medical Developments – September 18, 2014 – Astrix Networks Inc., operating under the trade name Memex Automation Inc., is solving the “last meter of productivity challenge” with new CNC hardware solutions that utilize MTConnect, the open, royalty-free standard that is intended to foster greater interoperability between manufacturing devices and software applications.

For older FANUC-controlled machines that still populate about 50% of CNC machine shop floors, Memex Automation’s new Ax760–MTC is a fully configurable hardware adapter that allows you to communicate with your CNCs utilizing the MTConnect standard. The plug-and-play hardware connects into the main FANUC I/O Link bus to transform FANUC signal into the MTConnect software protocol without disrupting the machine. The result is a machine that can passively detect data, on both the X and Y addresses from 0.0 to 127.7, as well as 16 additional digital inputs, allowing Memex’s MERLIN (Manufacturing Enterprise Real-time Lean Information Network) software to track a large number of data inputs that measure overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) in real-time, enterprise-wide, machine by machine, and other operational machine information.

For any machine, the Ax9150 UMI-MTC is a fully configurable MTConnect hardware adapter that allows you to communicate with your CNC utilizing MTConnect. Rather than buying a new controller, you can enhance your oldest legacy controllers so they can take advantage of today’s MTConnect communication standard and take advantage of MERLIN OEE benefits. In many instances, this can substitute for a machine monitoring retrofit. The Ax9150 UMI-MTC offers simple installation regardless of CNC make, model, or type.

“Increasing the utilization of both legacy and new assets is critical to a modern company and MERLIN makes that happen,” said Dick Morley, who is on the Board of Memex Automation and is known as the “father” of the programmable logic controller (PLC). “Memex Automation is clearly on the road to the future for automation and M2M. Finally, we have a company taking a leadership position.”

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