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INNOVATION 101 How to capitalize on opportunities and gain a competitive advantage

NEW ROBOTICS APPLICATION An innovative approach automates commercial cake decorating

AUTOMATION UPFRONT Factory of the future highlighted at recent international press conference

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M ac h i n e d e s i g n • s ys t e M s • t e c h n o l o g y

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ROBOTS A look at the emerging trend of operator and robot working together, safely, in manufacturing

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FROM THE EDITOR AUTOMATION UPFRONT

Deal makers In brief Movers and shakers

COLuMNS 9

INDUSTRY WATCH

Paul Hogendoorn discusses the importance of connecting work with meaning

10 LEAN INSIGHTS

Dr. Timothy Hill makes the connection between lean and safety

12 AUTOMATION SOFTWARE Jeremy Pollard reviews Radica Software’s Electra E7 R1.0

13 MACHINE SAFETY

Tyrone Penton examines unseen risks in machine safety

14 COLUMNBUS

Ian Verhappen discusses adding intelligence to process control

30 DISTORTED REALITIES

Dick Morley examines future trends in sensitivity and measurement

16

collaborative robots

A look at the emerging trend of operator and robot working together, safely, in manufacturing

By Mary Del Ciancio

20

where no one has gone before An innovative robotic application automates commercial cake decorating

By Vanessa Chris

NeW PrODuCTS 26 26 27 28 28 28 29

MOTORS AND DRIVES ROBOTICS COMMUNICATIONS & NETWORKING AUTOMATION SOFTWARE MACHINE SAFETY PROCESS CONTROL MATERIAL HANDLING

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22

innovation 101 How to capitalize on opportunities and gain a competitive advantage

By Shawn Casemore

24

Machine safety Q&a A look at Firestone Textiles’ approach to health and safety

By Mary Del Ciancio

www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 3 2014-10-24 11:21 AM

F R O M

T H E

E D I T O R www.automationmag.com

We are entering a new era

W

hen I was a little girl growing up in the ‘80s, I used to watch a cartoon called the Jetsons. The Space Age animated show took place in the year 2062, and what I remember most is that their cars looked like flying saucers and their housekeeper, Rosey, was a robot.

It seemed so futuristic at the time (and much of it still does). But that scenario takes place less than 50 years from now, and with technology moving at the rapid pace it is, it’s seeming less and less far-fetched — particularly the robot part.

At the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago this past September, a hot topic was collaborative robots — a new class of robots that can safely work on tasks with humans.

These robots are being used today in manufacturing environments — some in material handling applications, and others in production. It seemed like a perfect topic to explore in this issue of Manufacturing AUTOMATION, which focuses on both machine safety and robotics.

Even though this is an emerging technolCollaborative robots ogy, it surprised me to learn that many people are still unaware of what collaborative robots have the ability to are, and the opportunities available to them in a increase productivity manufacturing environment. I also learned that many of those who are aware of the technology in the manufacturing assume these robots can be used without guarding, regardless of the application. Not so. There industry, and do it safely. are, in fact, many factors to consider before implementing the technology. So I decided to explore the topic further, and write this month’s cover feature on the opportunities and limitations associated with collaborative robots. (See page 16) It’s an exciting time for the manufacturing industry. Collaborative robots have the ability to increase productivity for manufacturers, and do it safely. Safety, after all, is key. These robots are going to play a big part in bringing production back to North America, as many become more affordable and easier to use.

I’m excited to see where this market will go, and the impact it will have on the manufacturing industry. It’s still early, but I can see the possibilities — in industry, health care and at home.

And as the manufacturing industry enters a new era of technology, Manufacturing AUTOMATION is entering a new era of its own. After nine years with the magazine, I have resigned as the editor to pursue other opportunities. This is my final issue.

So much has changed since I joined the Manufacturing AUTOMATION team back in September 2005. We’ve survived a recession; though, not without a few bumps and bruises. But we’re stronger for it! It forced many companies to think outside of the box and, as a result, innovation and automation have become more and more commonplace on plant floors.

I’m proud of our industry and the journey I’ve taken with you over the last nine years. Thank you so much for your support. This is not goodbye. I’m confident our paths will cross again. Instead, I’ll say, until next time... •

Canada’s leading publication providing industrial automation news and technology information aimed at the discrete and process industries.

Mary Del Ciancio Editor mdelciancio@annexweb.com

Svetlana Avrutin Art Director savrutin@annexweb.com

Paul Grossinger Editorial Director pgrossinger@annexweb.com

Kathryn Nyenhuis Account Co-ordinator knyenhuis@annexweb.com

Klaus B. Pirker Group Publisher kpirker@annexweb.com (905) 726-4670

Lisa Thomson Circulation Co-ordinator 866-790-6070 ext. 201 Fax: 877-624-1940 lthomson@annexweb.com

Dick Morley Ian Verhappen Dr. Timothy Hill Paul Hogendoorn Jeremy Pollard Columnists

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November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

Michael Fredericks President mfredericks@annexweb.com

Editorial Advisory Board Al Diggins, President and General Manager, Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium David Green, Technology and Business-to-Business Marketing Professional Piero Cherubini, Dean, Faculty of Skilled Trades and Apprenticeship, Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology Sherman Lang, Industrial Technology Advisor, Industrial Research Assistance Program, National Research Council of Canada Don McCrudden, Vice-President, Business Development, Festo Bill Valedis, Vice-President, Precision Training Products & Services Inc.

Manufacturing AUTOMATION is published seven times a year by Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. 222 Edward Street, Aurora, Ontario L4G 1W6 Tel: (905) 727–0077 Fax: (905) 727–0017 PM # 40065710

The contents of Manufacturing Automation are copyright ©2014 by Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. and may not be reproduced in whole or part without written consent.

Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. disclaims any warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of the contents of this publication and disclaims all liability in respect of the results of any action taken or not taken in reliance upon information in this publication.

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U P F R O N T

Dow Canada investment promotes student success at NAIT

Ford adding 1,000 jobs to Oakville plant

F

ord Motor Co. of Canada says it is adding 1,000 jobs at its plant in Oakville, Ont., by the end of this year to build the 2015 Ford Edge crossover SUV for the global market.

The automaker says it also expects to increase spending on Canadian-made auto parts by $200 million a year, to nearly $4 billion annually — a shot in the arm for Ontario’s manufacturing sector and Canadian exporters.

Ford has been preparing for months to produce the

redesigned Edge at Oakville, west of Toronto, with vehicles now expected to be exported to more than 100 countries around the world — up from the previous estimate of 60 countries.

The factory also produces the Ford Flex, Lincoln MKX and Lincoln MKT. The 1,000 new jobs and 300 added last year will bring total employment at the plant to more than 4,000 by the end of 2014. Ford also operates an engine plant in Windsor, Ont., and employs a total of about 6,000 in Canada.

By the Canadian Press

A

$1,050,000 gift from Dow Canada will support student success and campus expansion at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT). Dow’s investment includes $800,000 for NAIT’s Centre for Applied Technologies, and $250,000 to sponsor a biennial seminar at NAIT showcasing the field of power engineering.

“We are thrilled to receive this gift from our longstanding partner Dow,” said NAIT president and CEO Dr. Glenn Feltham. “The Centre for Applied Technologies is essential for our growth as a leading polytechnic.

The power engineering technology seminar complements our hands-on education, showing students the many opportunities for applying their skills in meaningful careers.”

The Centre for Applied Technologies, under construction at Main Campus, will enrich the learning experiences of 5,000 full-time students daily when complete. The additional space will also enable NAIT to increase enrolment by 50 per cent in health, business, engineering technologies, and sustainable building and environmental management programs.

Power Engineering Technology, part of the School of Sustainable Building and Environmental Management, is one of the most in-demand programs at NAIT. Graduates work as operators or managers for power and heating plants, as consultants with engineering firms and as boiler and pressure vessel inspectors.

“We’re pleased to support campus expansion at NAIT and the Power Engineering Technology program,” said Joe Deutscher, Dow’s vice-president and site director, Alberta operations. “Our Dow Fort Saskatchewan site hires power engineering technicians and tradespeople almost exclusively from NAIT. With an economy set to expand at an average annual rate of 4.7 per cent, we need to be visible as an employer of choice to remain competitive in the marketplace. At Dow, we provide NAIT graduates with opportunities to grow their careers at both the local and global levels.”

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www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 5 2014-10-27 9:24 AM

A U T O M A T I O N

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Festo highlights its view of future production during international press conference

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ncreasingly individualized products and more intelligent, networked components are transforming the world of production, and Festo is embracing the changes. That was the message from Dr. Eberhardt Veit, chairman of the management board of Festo AG, during Festo’s recent international press conference at its headquarters in Esslingen, Germany.

“A lot of companies are complaining about the fast changes, about the future. Festo is a company that [views] the changes as opportunities,” said Dr. Veit.

And they’re acting on these opportunities, as members of the international technical press — including Manufacturing AUTOMATION — learned at the recent conference.

Their products, research, training and investments all support their view of what production will look like in the future.

Festo has adopted an integral approach in the quest for the production of the future. In Industry 4.0, products and processes must “fit together in one intelligent system, intelligent factory,” said Dr. Veit. “I think intelligent products are really the basis of Industry 4.0.

“We regard Industry 4.0 as a highly interdisciplinary future project, in which we constantly co-operate with partners from the fields of industry and science. Festo is involved, among other things, in a number of co-operative research projects that deal with various aspects of the production of the future,” said Dr. Veit.

Festo predicts that the automation pyramid will undergo an evolutionary transformation. The vision is of a fully networked, adaptive production process that assumes the components themselves will become more intelligent and be bestowed with additional functions, so that they can collaborate to establish their own networks. According to Festo, in the future, humans and machines will co-operate more closely, more frequently. The robots of the future will interact with humans and avoid collisions with them by means of intelligent sensors. Thanks to advances in intelligence, these machines represent an increasingly smaller hazard in interactions with humans, and instead support them by relieving the burden of day-to-day work, for example in assembly.

But Festo isn’t just looking at technology. The company is also giving consideration to the future role of the human operator.

“Not only the technological developments are important, but also the question of what role the human will play in the overall context of production of the future, and how an enterprise can

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The new Festo exhibition “Experience Energy Efficiency” focuses on the interplay of intelligent systems design, energy-efficient products and solutions, sustainable services and sound vocational training.

Like its natural role model, the BionicKangaroo can recover, store and retrieve the energy efficiently on the next jump. It can be controlled using gestures.

If a superconductor is cooled to its transition temperature and the spacer removed, the magnet will then hover over the superconductor in a stable condition.

prepare its employees accordingly,” said Dr. Veit.

Advances in employee know-how must keep pace with the increasingly sophisticated information technology. The technical development objectives of Industry 4.0 must be co-ordinated with the working world and new training needs.

The company said Festo Didactic, its industrial training and vocational education arm, meets these requirements by developing and providing suitable teaching and research platforms.

At the press conference, Festo showed what the production of the more distant future could look like with its Future Concepts — for example, its research projects focusing on superconductivity. When cooled to a certain temperature, superconductive materials can “freeze” the field of a nearby permanent magnet and hold it in suspension at a fixed distance. The stable air gap thereby produced allows the contactless storage and movement of objects without friction loss or the need for control mechanisms.

And the company’s BionicKangaroo — a project from its Bionic Learning Network — also addresses aspects of future production. The development team spent two years recreating the jumping behaviour of the natural kangaroo as closely as possible and learning from it. The result is the BionicKangaroo, which recovers and stores energy, retrieving it on the next jump, just like the creature it was inspired by. It can be controlled with gestures by means of an armband, which registers the muscular activity of the operator. Projects developed from the company’s Bionic Learning Network look at principles from nature with the purpose of gaining inspiration for

technical applications and industrial practice as it prepares for the factory of the future.

Festo is taking a further step towards the production of the future in the form of its technology plant currently under construction in Ostfildern-Scharnhausen, a few kilometres from Festo’s headquarters in Germany. When complete, this will be a production site for valves, valve terminals and electronic components. It will also be used to train and show customers how to innovate their production and demonstrate how they can produce products competitively.

Energy efficiency was also a hot topic at the conference, with the launch of Festo’s “Experience Energy Efficiency” exhibition, located at its corporate headquarters in Esslingen-Berkheim.

“For us, energy efficiency is a competitive factor and must be consistently established on an interdisciplinary basis as a fundamental requirement for the development process,” said Dr. Veit.

The “Experience Energy Efficiency” exhibition allows customers to directly experience the topic of energy efficiency with videos, interactive exhibits and exhibition modules that demonstrate the company’s products. The focus is on a four-step approach that encompasses the interplay of intelligent systems design, energy-efficient products and solutions, sustainable services and a sound vocational training.

To view video footage from Dr. Veit’s presentation at the international press conference, as well as Manufacturing AUTOMATION’s interview with him, visit the video portal at www.AutomationMag.com.

By Mary Del Ciancio

November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

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U P F R O N T

MOVERS AND SHAKERS Cisco Canada names new president Bernadette Wightman is the new president of Cisco Canada, replacing Nitin Kawale, who is leaving Cisco after 19 years with the company, including six years as president of Cisco Canada.

Wightman is a 15-year Cisco veteran with demonstrated success leading sales organizations in both developed and emerging markets. She brings extensive experience in customer, partner and service provider organizations to the Cisco Canada team. Most recently, Wightman served as the general manager for Cisco in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the other Commonwealth of Independent State countries, where she led the team in a challenging geo-political landscape and built a trusted business platform for the future. Prior to that, Wightman led Channel and Commercial sales for Cisco’s Emerging Theatre, the largest Cisco Commercial theatre outside of the America’s, spanning 84 countries and more than 10,000 partners. Her Cisco experience also includes various roles in the U.K. and Ireland, including leading the Partner Organization and working with British Telecom.

Wightman replaces Nitin Kawale, who has successfully led Cisco Canada, securing the company’s continued investment in innovation in Canada.

“Cisco is extremely proud of the accomplishments of our Canadian operations,” said Alison Gleeson, senior vice-president, Americas, Cisco. “Canada continues to be one of our most successful Cisco country operations, and a key centre for R&D and innovation. We thank Nitin for his leadership and congratulate Bernadette as she takes over the reins and brings her perspective to this high-performing team.”

IN BRIEF • Magna International has signed a deal to buy the Techform Group of Companies, an automotive supplier of hinges, door locking rods and other closure products.

• General Mills plans to cut 700 to 800 jobs as the food company wrestles with a shift by U.S. consumers away from boxed or frozen meals. The Minneapolis company expects about US$135 million to $160 million in restructuring charges. It foresees annual cost savings of approximately $125 million to $150 million, starting in fiscal 2016. General Mills anticipates the current restructuring to be completed by fiscal 2015’s end.

• Expansion by a green energy company is expected to bring 130 new jobs to Belleville, Ont. Strathcona Energy Group has bought the former Nortel building in the city, and plans to turn it into a manufacturing facility. The plant will produce solar modules to be used mostly in the North American market on pre-existing structures, and manufacturing is expected to begin early next year.

With files from the Associated Press and the Canadian Press

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www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 26.02.14 15:21 7 2014-05-26 2:13 PM

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DEAL MAKERS turck acquires a 50 per cent interest in Chartwell Automation Industrial automation manufacturer Turck has acquired a 50 per cent interest in Chartwell Automation Inc., effective October 1, 2014. The new company, named Turck Chartwell Canada Inc., is based in Markham, Ont. In addition, on October 1, 2017, Turck will purchase the remaining shares in the company, at which point the company will be called Turck Canada Inc. Chartwell co-founders Mark and Steve Boehmer have signed long-term management contracts and will continue in their respective roles as president and vice-president of sales and marketing.

“This is a very exciting event for both companies, for our employees, our distributor partners and customers,” Mark and Steve Boehmer said in a press release. “Our greatest assets have always been our people, and by joining forces with Turck, we believe that it will allow us to provide a wider array of services with enhanced knowledge and expertise. Our partnership with Turck will create a more comprehensive infrastructure with faster response times and access to all of the resources available through the world wide network that Turck has established.”

Chartwell has been Turck’s exclusive partner in Canada since Chartwell was founded in 1983. Turck Chartwell Canada Inc. will continue to provide application and technical support for the products in its core categories of sensing, fieldbus, interface and connectivity.

Founded in 1965, Turck, a manufacturer of industrial automation products, has more than 3,350 employees working in 28 subsidiaries, and sales partners in 60 other countries. Turck has state-of-the-art production facilities in Germany, Switzerland, the U.S., Mexico and China.

“Though our name has changed, our distributor partners and customers can rely on the same personal working relationships that they have had in the past,” said Mark and Steve Boehmer. “They will still be dealing with the same people and they can depend on the same quality of work. Our lineup of products from other world-renowned suppliers will continue to be available through Turck Chartwell Canada Inc.”

siemens to acquire camstar Siemens has entered into an agreement to acquire Camstar Systems, Inc., a provider of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) software. The acquisition will build on Siemens’ industrial digitalization strategy by broadening its integrated product development and production automation solutions for the electronics, semiconductor and medical device industries.

Camstar will become part of Siemens’ product life cycle management (PLM) business. The transaction is expected to close during the second half of November 2014. Terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.

The Camstar portfolio includes next-generation, high-performance analytics to gain insight into the operations of complex and global processes. This cloud-based capability leverages state-of-the-art, big data technology across the operations and global supply chain of the enterprise.

“The addition of the Camstar team and products represents the latest step in Siemens’ focus on delivering industry-leading, comprehensive functionality and the deep expertise needed to support our customers’ digital enterprises,” said Chuck Grindstaff, president and CEO of Siemens PLM Software. “The addition of Camstar’s solutions will further accelerate our integration of PLM with the Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) domain.

In the integrated digital enterprise, we are enabling PLM, MOM and industrial automation to work together to help customers realize innovation in their products and processes throughout the value chain. Camstar’s unique value and industry-centric approach complements the Siemens strategy for the MOM domain, and will be a welcomed addition to our premier MES brand, SIMATIC IT.” Founded in 1984, Camstar is headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., and has 250 employees in the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, China and The Netherlands. schneider electric to acquire instep software Schneider Electric has entered into an agreement to acquire InStep Software, a provider of real-time performance

management and predictive asset analytics software and solutions. It is the latest acquisition from the company’s growing software business, and deepens its presence in the power and energy market. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014, subject to customary regulatory and other closing conditions.

Headquartered in Chicago, Ill. and founded in 1995, InStep provides two primary real-time performance management and predictive analytics software solutions. Its eDNA historian software collects, stores, analyzes, displays and reports on real-time operational and machinery sensor data. Its PRiSM predictive analytics software monitors the real-time health and performance of critical assets by using advanced pattern recognition and diagnostic techniques to identify subtle deviations in operating behaviour that are often the early warning signs of imminent failures.

“Acquiring InStep Software is indicative of our commitment to delivering game-changing technology and powerful new solutions that improve efficiency, manage risk and drive higher levels of customer value,” said Ravi Gopinath, Ph.D., executive vice-president, Schneider Electric Global Solutions, Software Business. “They have a proven, experienced team who are dedicated to helping their customers achieve new levels of value, performance and profitability, and we are delighted to welcome them to Schneider Electric.”

“As with other recent acquisitions, InStep Software strengthens our portfolio in targeted industries and segments,” said Rob McGreevy, vice-president, information, operations and asset management, Schneider Electric. “Their solutions give us additional, stronger data management and predictive analytics capabilities in the power and energy management industries, including power transmission and distribution, and will help us fulfill our strategic plans around Big Data, the Internet of Things and other emerging trends.”

InStep Software will continue to be managed by its existing executive team, adding approximately 70 employees to Schneider Electric’s operations in the United States. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. •

For the most up-to-date news, stories and videos, check us out at

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November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

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Goal for 2015: Connecting work with meaning By pAUL hOGeNDOOrN

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p until the industrial revolution, the typical working man (forgive the political incorrectness for now) was able to easily measure the achievements of his efforts by, for example, how much wood was chopped; how many cows were milked; how many miles of fences mended or rows tilled; how much seed was sown and how much crops were harvested. The payoff for every day’s effort invested was not just the tactile results, but also the pride and satisfaction that went with it.

The assembly line kicked the industrial revolution into a higher gear, and that yielded a lot of benefits to the middle class, and to our society as a whole.

Cars and many other things became affordable for the average person, not just because the cost to produce them came down, but because the wages being paid went up as well. Another great benefit attributable to that revolution is the freedom we continue to enjoy today. Without North America’s superior manufacturing capacity, the Second World War would have had a different outcome.

The industrial revolution has come with some costs. One of those, in my opinion, is the individual’s sense of satisfaction that used to come with simply doing a good job. The feedback in today’s plants, if any, is indirect. A lot of the time, it’s only given when the desired or expected results were not achieved, or when a new deal needs to be negotiated. In most plants, individuals are no longer driven by intrinsic motivators (such as their natural sense of pride in a job well done, and the satisfaction of achieving an objective); they are driven by extrinsic motivators instead, and often these are negative — the threat of demotion, or the fear of losing a job or having a plant close, for instance.

Positive extrinsic motivators, such as financial incentives, promotions, etc., are short-lived, and sometimes they are counterproductive. Intrinsic motivators have the most benefit for both the company and the worker, and they have the longest lasting positive effect.

Deep down inside, people are more comfortable being measured by others when they are confident in what they are doing, and when they know what they are being measured by. The first step to helping them become more confident and comfortable is to allow them first to measure themselves. That’s the way it used to be before industrialization made it management’s job to measure them.

Having people measure themselves is just one way to connect work with meaning, and it’s an important connection to make. After all, most people’s personal self-image and identity is connected to what they do for a living. What they do for a living matters greatly to them. Why, then, don’t we tap into that connection, and make the work they do more meaningful to them every day?

Looked at from the other perspective, most companies’ biggest investment is the wages they pay to their workers, and they often boast that their strength and biggest asset is their people. The engagement question looms even larger.

Let’s go back and look at two significant changes that occurred during the Second World War. The first was that women flooded the manufacturing workplaces to fill shortages as men left for the battlefields. The second change was not as obvious, but was just as significant. Production work not only had value, it had real meaning. The women were motivated every day to arm, equip, feed and clothe their men oversees — their husbands, brothers, boyfriends and fathers. I know that this extreme level of connecting work with meaning was only possible because of the circumstance, but I visit plants every now and then that are able to make that connection. They are able to engage their workers by connecting work with meaning.

As our industries pursue competitive advantages and sustainability objectives, applying lean practices and investing in more equipment, I wonder how much improvement is possible simply through engaging our workforce better. Productivity would be better, people would be happier, and stresses and tensions would be removed from the workplace. The bottom line would be healthier, and people would be, too. I believe that the next new “thing” in industry needs to be engagement: connecting work with meaning. That should be our continuous improvement goal for 2015. • Paul Hogendoorn (paulh@getfreepoint.com) is president of FreePoint Technologies. www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 win_MA_May.indd 1

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The connection between lean and safety

By Dr. TIMOThy hILL

L

ean has a seemingly endless stream of phrases to identify its various methodologies — 5S, kanbans, value stream mapping, spaghetti diagrams, kaizen, kaikaku, etc. But according to one engineering manager, you won’t see safety in there anywhere. In reality, lean is more than just becoming more efficient; it’s also about becoming safer, and the results can be immediate.

Pascal Dennis, a lean sensei, once asked, “Why do leading organizations like Alcoa, Dupont, Toyota and others put safety first?” After all, isn’t profitability number one? You know, reducing waste to maximize shareholder value and return on investment.

Doesn’t Toyota say that if you reduce the costs of production, profit goes up?

Well, yes and no. The “yes” comes from the superficial truth in all of this, but the “no” comes from the realization that if we can manage our processes such that nobody gets hurt, quality, delivery, cost and profitability will surely follow.

Safe workplaces are invariably productive. They have standardized work, visual management, good ergonomics, flow and pull. People understand their jobs, what can go wrong, how to avoid it, and how to excel. And more than

“Workers started calling, but they didn’t want to talk about accidents, they wanted to talk about all these other great ideas.”

— Paul O’Neill that, they become empowered to fix those things that they, as the people closest to production, know need fixing.

Consider how Paul O’Neill, former CEO of Alcoa, brought in a lean culture. He hung it all on Alcoa achieving and maintaining a true safety culture.

Safety is a given in most organizations. But without an understanding of the process, it becomes just a slogan.

O’Neill did a fantastic job using safety to get his teams to focus on driving process improvement. By doing this, they learned much more about their process.

As safety got better, so did many other operational metrics. And the rest, as they say, is history at Alcoa.

O’Neill’s success at Alcoa is just one example of changing a habit, or of a kata — a pattern that has the power

to start a chain reaction, changing other habits as it moves through an organization. Katas can influence how people work, eat, play, live, spend and communicate.

For instance, consider one event about six months into O’Neill’s tenure, when he got a phone call in the middle of the night. A plant manager in Arizona was on the line, panicked, talking about how a piece of machinery had stopped operating and one of the workers — a young man who had joined the company a few weeks earlier — had tried to repair it. He had jumped over a yellow safety wall surrounding the press and walked across the pit. There was a piece of aluminum jammed into the hinge on a swinging six-foot arm. The young man pulled on the aluminum scrap, removing it. The machine was fixed.

Behind him, the arm restarted its arc, swinging toward his head. When it hit, the arm crushed his skull. He was killed instantly.

Fourteen hours later, O’Neill ordered all the plant’s executives into an emergency meeting. For much of the day, they painstakingly re-created the accident with diagrams and by watching videotapes again and again. They identified dozens of errors that had

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ANSWER: Glad you asked! Everyone seems to be on the road to lean, but too many business leaders still believe lean is a program, and few of them realize lean is a philosophy and a culture change journey built upon trust.

Lean safety gemba walks can go a great distance to change that.

Essentially, lean safety gemba walks are the same as any other gemba walk, save for paying special attention to safety issues. They are also one of the easiest entry points for businesses to begin or restart their lean cultural change journey.

By focusing on safety and giving focus to the impact of work on an individual, and then allowing them to improve their work processes, multiple benefits result. Those who perform the work tasks end up seeing safety differently, go home less tired at the end of their workday and understand the answer to the “what’s in it for me” question that everyone asked to participate in lean wants answered. The business also realizes multiple benefits: increased employee engagement (trust building); a safety culture that begins to focus on the continuous improvement of safety and not just compliance safety; and the cycle time of the business processes are improved via the safety improvement activities being reduced, which supports the goal of lean (to reduce the delivery cycle time to customers by eliminating waste).

A good reference work is the book Lean Safety Gemba Walks – A Methodology for Employee Engagement and Culture Change, by Robert Hafey.

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November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

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L E A N

I N S I G H T S

contributed to the death, including: two managers who had seen the man jump over the barrier but failed to stop him; a training program that hadn’t emphasized to the man that he wouldn’t be blamed for a breakdown; lack of instructions that he should find a manager before attempting a repair; and the absence of sensors to automatically shut down the machine when someone stepped into the pit.

“We killed this man,” a grim-faced O’Neill told the group. “It’s my failure of leadership. I caused his death. And it’s the failure of all of you in the chain of command.”

The executives in the room were taken aback. Sure, a tragic accident had occurred, but tragic accidents were part of life at Alcoa.

Within a week of that meeting,

however, all the safety railings at Alcoa’s plants were repainted bright yellow, and new policies were written up. Employees were told not to be afraid to suggest proactive maintenance. And O’Neill sent a note to every worker telling them to call him at home if managers didn’t followup on their safety suggestions.

“Workers started calling, but they didn’t want to talk about accidents,”

O’Neill told me. “They wanted to talk about all these other great ideas.”

That’s when the spirit of lean really started to shine at Alcoa. • Dr. Timothy Hill is an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist and Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with global expertise in Human Resources/Human Capital. He can be reached at drtim@kyoseicanada.ca.

From the bookshelf The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business,

by Charles Duhigg I know this book isn’t technically about lean, but the message about the power of habit is related. At its heart, Toyota Kata is really all about forming successful habits that foster lean.

Charles Duhigg uses recent scientific discoveries to explain why habits exist and how they can be changed.

He presents information, but also presents captivating narratives that draw on experiences in the boardrooms of Procter & Gamble, to the sidelines of the NFL, to the front lines of the civil rights movement.

He brings forward an argument that would surprise people who don’t believe in the “power of habit” or kata. Those with a martial arts background will recognize this at once.

As Duhigg said in an interview, he first became interested in habits as a reporter in Baghdad. He had heard about an army major conducting an experiment.

The major had analyzed videotapes of riots and found that violence was often preceded by a crowd gathering in a plaza and, over the course of hours, growing in size. Food vendors would show up, as well as spectators. Then someone would throw a rock or a bottle.

When the major met with the town’s mayor, he made an odd request: Could they keep food vendors out of the plazas?

“Sure,” the mayor said. A few weeks later, a small crowd gathered near a mosque. It grew in size. Some people started chanting angry slogans. At dusk, the crowd started getting restless and hungry. People looked for the food vendors normally filling the plaza, but there were none to be found.

The spectators left. The chanters became dispirited. By 8 p.m., everyone was gone.

Removing food vendors broke the habit.

At its core, The Power of Habit tells us that the key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive and achieving success is in understanding how habits work.

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www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 11 2014-10-22 10:26 AM

A U T O M A T I O N

S O F T W A R E

A review of Radica Software’s Electra E7 R1.0

By JereMy pOLLArD

I

reviewed Radica’s Electra back in 2006. The fact that the product is still active says something about the company and the relevance of the product.

This will be a two-part column on Electra E7, mainly due to the depth of the product, which costs anywhere from $998 to $2,398. One wonders how a drawing program costing $1,000 can be of any assistance in your business. I believe the maturity of the product can offer small to medium-sized automation companies a valuable tool for creating electrical, pneumatic or hydraulic layouts.

Electra is built on Microsoft’s Visio drawing and stenciling product. A valid Visio licence is required to install the package. I installed Visio 2007 before I installed Electra E7 on a Windows 7 virtual machine.

The first place I normally go when preparing a review is the help file to see how much information can be gleaned from there, as well as to get a feel for the level of complication that the product has. This is also an indication of the steepness of the learning curve to expect.

To be clear, the de facto standard for preparing drawings is AutoCAD Electrical.

Eplan P8 is another drawing package, but both products represent a big investment in time and money. Electra E7 is an inexpensive entry into automated drawing generation.

As part of the review, I will be taking a peek at MegaFlex Visio stencils, which can be used with Electra E7. These stencils present the full ISA instrument symbols

The Electra E7 Drawing canvas and component database with annotation, so more on this in a later column.

Let’s get started.

I began by opening up the sample file provided by the company, because the main purpose of a drawing package is to automate the creation of information as much as possible.

Any drawing package of an automation project requires the basics: table of contents, wiring connection schedule, terminal block layouts, bills of material, and cross reference reports, which would be automatically generated by the pages of actual drawings. The creation of pages would be for power (single and three-phase) component control drawings, PLC I/O, and pneumatic and/or hydraulic components.

Conceptually, Electra uses references of symbols, components and groups that are fully object based. How and why you create your drawings is a personal preference, but once the physical system has been designed and handed over for drawing generation, the three-phase equipment is drawn. This includes things like disconnects, main fusing and the like.

You can create your own or use a pre-assembled circuit(s). Should you have multiple similar circuits, a copy/paste function allows you to easily duplicate your efforts. Automatic renaming of wire numbers and terminal blocks occurs, as well as object renaming.

The help file is where I typically start, and there has been a lot of effort put into this one. I also went to the company’s website and found videos on how to navigate through the software.

A very cool feature is the ability to create components from other components — sort of like a macro component. Combining a contactor with two auxiliary contacts and a thermal overload to create a starter component is an example of this. When the component is used, all things automatic — such as terminal points and wire numbers — are updated in the component database.

Electra 7 is written in Microsoft’s VBA as a collection of macros so that all Electra functions are owned by Radica. Visio functions and third-party stencils, such as Megaflex, are still available. I still have to figure out how to take a third-party symbol and integrate it into Electra7 component structure.

The product integrates with Microsoft quite well. Import and export functions exist for the databases that Electra7 uses, so the user can add data and components, and reimport them.

One of the main uses of an electrical drawing package is to document PLC I/O drawings, along with the three-phase and single line data. There are standard drawing blocks for PLC input and output modules, but these blocks don’t differentiate between analog and discrete modules. You can create your own templates, however.

The wiring terminations are presented and then you have to manually insert the devices to create the I/O drawing. Linked wires provide the power supply for the module, though typically from a different page.

I am giving this product some slack since it is a total rewrite of an existing product.

I have asked the company for clarification on a number of things, which I will report on next column. As a total revamp of a successful product, I think it deserves it.• Jeremy Pollard (jpollard@tsuonline.com) has been in the industrial automation industry for more than 25 years. He has worked as a systems integrator, consultant and educator.

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M A C H I N E

S A F E T Y

Understanding unseen risks in machine safety

By TyrONe peNTON

F

inding that fine line between safety and production efficiency is a constantly evolving process.

Companies continue to expand their efforts to ensure employee safety and still make gains in their production output.

An ongoing challenge is that often the machine safety is integrated after the machine is built, because risks become much more evident after the fact. This can lead to increased implementation costs and ultimately production downtime.

So how do you go about understanding these risks before the machine is built if they do not immediately jump off the page of the mechanical drawings? It’s all about planning and customizing the safety solution to the machine in the early stages. Understanding which safety products to use for your application can avoid costly changes down the line.

In Ontario, a Pre-start Health and Safety Review (PSR) is a mandatory inspection required for a machine to become operational. In most cases, this is completed by a professional engineer after the machine is built.

The PSR could provide a passing evaluation or identify deficiencies that need to be corrected, which can sometimes become much more costly than if they had been addressed prior to the machine being built. Most experienced machine builders work closely with a professional engineer throughout the design process.

We brought in Jim VanKessel, P. Eng., from JVK

Advantech_MA_Nov.indd 1

Industrial Automation Inc., to share some opinions on the most common elements that people forget about when it comes to machine safety. He has been completing PSRs for two decades.

When it comes to machine safety, what are some of the frequently overlooked safety risks that you commonly come across when completing PSRs? Jim: The most common mistake is the absence of control for the fluid power elements. Everyone gets the electrical interlocks, but then they ignore the risks associated with the air and hydraulic elements. They all agree that the hazard is very serious, but they end up with a general purpose control on the fluid power elements.

Also, robot cells almost never have the restricted space defined, and the robots can reach beyond the safeguarded space. The new robots make defining this space easy, but the end-users don’t understand how much it will help safeguard employees, and they buy the generic robot model instead of the one with the smart safety built-in. In the end, it can cost more to use and safeguard an old robot than it would be to upgrade to a new robot and new safety products.

What tips do you have to help people look for additional safety risks before getting to a PSR? Jim: The most successful projects are the ones where you can have a discussion up front with a certified

engineer. It allows the engineer to do the risk assessment with the designers and end-users, so that when the machine is built, the hazards get addressed properly.

All of the CSA safety standards start with a risk assessment, but it’s uncommon to find companies doing this as their first step. Typically, they are building the machine to meet production needs and then see the dangers behind it and realize there should be guarding around it. Add-on guards can restrict production, which in turn generates a bad feeling about the safety and may lead to more attempts to disable or bypass the safety in the future. I have been involved in many installations where we ended up changing the process a little so the guard and production can work together. Doing this after can cost big dollars and lead to production downtime.

Completing the risk assessment first will allow you to pick and customize the safety solutions to the machine.

Knowing the best safety products for both the obvious and unseen safety risks will help you keep the project on budget and keep your machines running without unnecessary downtime.

Doing a little bit of planning upfront will potentially save you lots down the road, and keep your employees safe while using your machines. • Tyrone Penton is the sales manager at Advanced Motion & Controls Ltd. He has been with the company for 19 years.

www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 13 2014-10-27 12:23 PM

C O L U M N B U S

Adding intelligence to process control

By Ian Verhappen

W

ith all of the continuous improvements being made in process control and automation through more effective alarm management systems, better HMIs and improved control theory and algorithms, we often forget that a control system is only as good as the field measurements and final control elements used to monitor and control the process. Fortunately, the new HMI standards take this into consideration by providing suggestions on how equipment health can be incorporated into tag display information. Similarly, field device manufacturers have agreed on methods to communicate device status for both analog- and fieldbus-based systems.

These field device health standards are based on the work of NAMUR — the international user association of automation technology in process industries.

NAMUR was established in 1949 from end-user organizations based along the Rhine river. Today, it has grown to more than 130 international companies and, since it is an end-user organization representing a significant portion of the manufacturing capacity of Northern Europe, it also has significant influence on the automation suppliers that work with it. Two of the documents the association has prepared related to the effective use of intelligent field devices are NE 43 (“Standardization of the Signal Level for the Failure Information of Digital Transmitters”) and NE 107 (“Self-Monitoring and Diagnosis of Field Devices”).

The NE 43 document provides a guideline on how a sensor fault can be indicated to a control system by means of extending the range of the 4-20 mA signal.

When the current is below 3.6 mA or above 21 mA for more than four seconds, it is interpreted as a sensor fault, and notifications can be given to the operators and maintenance teams to take appropriate actions. The reason the minimum current level is 3.6 mA is because a two-wire field device requires this amount of energy for its own power and operation.

Looking at this in graphical format (see Figure 1), the field device is considered to be sending a valid signal if it’s between 3.6 and 21 mA, and valid measurements if it’s between the traditional 4-20 mA. Figure 1

OK

The process value is still valid, but internal diagnostics predict that the device can fail soon. There can be more than one alarm limit for this function to provide extensive notice to allow for scheduling of device maintenance. This alarm is normally sent to the asset management or preventative maintenance planning tools.

Out of specification

The process value is not valid, but other than that, the device is functioning. One typical reason for this notification is that the device is operating outside the calibrated range.

This notification should be sent to the operator HMI, as well as maintenance and possibly engineering.

Check function

The process value is not valid because someone is working on the device. This alarm should be displayed on the operator HMI, though they should already be aware of this because they issued a work permit to the technician.

Failure

The process value is not valid due to a device malfunction.

This alarm should be reported to the control system logic and operator HMI, as well as the maintenance system(s) so that it can be repaired. The control system logic should be designed so that, in the event the device is not working properly, the associated control algorithms that rely on the field device also go to a safe condition. Foundation Fieldbus accomplishes this when using control in the field with the status bit transmitted with every function block communication.

3.6 4 3.8

Diagnostic active

The diagnostic features of the device are on and working.

Failure 20

mA

21 20.5

It is important to remember that to test the reaction of a PLC or DCS system to a defect transmitter, the 4-20 mA calibration signal source will also need to be able to simulate the high and low NE 43 current levels.

The second document adopted by the process fieldbuses is NE 107, which added Figure 2

Maintenance Out of Specification

?

?

X

X

Check Function Failure Diagnostics active Diagnostics passive 14

Maintenance

Measurement Data

Failure 0

a fourth fault category of “undergoing maintenance” (or “check function”) to the existing categories of “failed,” “out of specification” and “maintenance required.”

The symbols in Figure 2 show each of the four categories incorporated into the Fieldbus Foundation Interoperability Test Kit (ITK 6+) on which the FF device “Check Mark” is based, as well as the FDT (Field Device Tool) standards.

Each of these categories has been defined as follows:

November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

Diagnostic passive The diagnostic features of the device have been disabled.

Any of the symbols in the three columns can be used to represent the above associated states, with the colours in the first column being used with the HMI status near a tag, the centre row for black and white displays or printed reports, and the final row as the full representation whenever possible.

In addition to these definitions, which help to classify the alarm and send it to the appropriate department for remedial action, manufacturers are using the symbols along with masking filters to provide highly granular sorting of alarms not only in these four categories — maintenance, out of specification, check function or failure — but also to provide very specific definitions of the fault and, in many cases, recommendations for how to repair or correct the root cause of the alarm.

If you are interested in reading the documents yourself, you can order free copies of up to three NAMUR documents once every four years at http://www.namur. net/en/recommendations-and-worksheets/order-of-free-copies.html.

Incorporating the intelligence you have in your field devices will result in more effective control of your facility. • Ian Verhappen, P.Eng. (iverhappen@gmail.com), is an ISA Fellow, ISA Certified Automation Professional (CAP), and a recognized authority on Foundation Fieldbus and industrial communications technologies.

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collaborative

ROBOTS A look at the emerging trend of operator and robot working together, safely, in manufacturing

By MAry DeL CIANCIO

Rethink Robotics’ Baxter robot was designed to work safely next to people without cages or external control safeguards.

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November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

F

ifteen years from now, there will be a collaborative robot in every single manufacturing environment in the world. For sure.

That prediction comes from Jim Lawton, chief marketing officer of Rethink Robotics, a Boston, Mass.-based robotics company.

Rethink is one of several companies with collaborative robot offerings on the market, helping to bring attention to this new category of robots.

The term collaborative robots refers to humans and robots working together on common tasks, safely. It’s become an industry buzzword, and is even addressed in the latest version of the ISO 10218 — robots and robotic devices — standard, where collaborative operation is defined as “a state in which purposely designed robots work in direct co-operation with a human within a defined workspace.”

But there are certain applications better suited for the emerging technology, and certain considerations need to be made when deciding whether collaborative robots are right for your manufacturing environment.

What are the opportunities?

Collaborative robots emerged on the manufacturing scene because the industry was demanding flexible automation to replace dangerous, boring and error-prone tasks at an affordable price, and many manufacturers were looking for alternatives to chasing low-cost labour across the globe. At the same time, robot manufacturers were looking for ways to give customers the benefit of more human collaboration with robots.

Today, the market is growing, as robotic companies work to build safe, collaborative robots to help customers take advantage of the opportunities the technology offers.

But in order to understand the opportunities, you must first consider what collaboration looks like. And that depends on who you ask.

Erik Nieves, CTO at Yaskawa Motoman, says that collaboration technically means four flavours — stopped

state monitoring, speed and separation monitoring, hand guiding, and power and force limiting. (See the glossary on page 19 for definitions of these terms.) The first three, he says, are supported by just about every robot controller out there. However, it’s the latter that’s typically referred to when collaborative robots are discussed.

But Nieves says that’s too narrow.

“When we first started thinking about the notion of collaborative robots, it was simply about having robots and their human operators work more closely and naturally together. So it really was just that. How do I make this system more efficient by leveraging the strength of the robot and the strength of the person in better balance?” explains Nieves. “So the robot is good for strength and memory. They can repeat tasks and they can do inhuman tasks in terms of payload and repeatability. But the human operators are much better at decision-making and quality control. So we view collaboration as being very broad, as having direct applicability to lots of robot applications.”

Rethink’s Lawton says collaborative robots are ideal for applications that require flexibility and versatility. For example, a manufacturing environment with a high-mix, low-volume operation would be a good candidate, as well as applications “where the task needs to get done in very human-like ways.”

Packaging environments are a good fit, as well as applications that require line loading and unloading, machine tending, material handling, light, general assembly, testing and sorting. Applications where collaborative robots may not be the best fit are those that require extraordinary precision.

Nieves believes collaboration has a role to play in process robots — those adding value, whether it’s painting, welding or another process. Material handling applications, where robots are supporting moving parts in and out of production, are another area where he feels collaboration is useful — even in applications requiring material handling over 10 pounds. Another application is material handling less than 10 pounds,

where precision is not required.

Tom Moolayil, technical support manager, North America, for Universal Robots (UR), says the biggest application in North America for the company’s UR5 and UR10 flexible, lightweight, six-axis robot arms is CNC machine tool tending.

With these new, portable five- and 10-kg robots, you don’t need to worry about floor space, which is a huge bonus, says Moolayil, “because you don’t have to worry about guarding [and] you don’t have to worry about concreting the floor and bolting it down because it’s a lightweight robot. So you can make it do one thing here, you can move it around, program it to do something else. And that makes it a lot more flexible to install this robot in [a] plant.”

But does collaboration automatically mean the robot is not fenced? Not necessarily, says Nieves, giving welding as an example. You can gain the benefit of collaboration in loading the part directly without having this interim fixture in between, but it’s still fenced, he says.

“Why? Because the robot needed to shield the operator from the arc flash. So there is a zone where the robot comes out and presents itself to the operator in the wide open. But when it’s going over to do the work, it’s hiding itself in the cubby where the arc welding takes place. Not all fences are about keeping people away from robots. There are reasons for barriers that go outside of human-robot collision,” he says. For example, process paramaters, hygiene and throughput.

But there are a growing number of applications where you can legitimately eliminate fences. It all depends on the application and what the robot is holding, says Jim VanKessel, owner of JVK Industrial Automation Inc., in Kitchener, Ont. “The big trick with collaborative is, what are you putting in the hands of that robot — the type of grippers, the type of product you’re handling? Some will require guarding of some sort, like light curtains, where other applications don’t. So the real trick is assessing the risk of the specific application,” says VanKessel.

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17

Esben Ostergaard, founder and CTO of Universal Robots, says 80 per cent of the company’s UR5 and UR10 flexible, lightweight, six-axis robot arms are used in collaborative environments without guarding.

Yaskawa Motoman’s Functional Safety Unit makes the company’s robots safe for collaborative environments where people interact with the robot during production.

“The robot by itself has all the safety built into it. The part that’s important is assessing the risk of the endof-arm tooling, the gripper mechanisms — whatever they’re using to handle their materials. It’s assessing that risk of the specific application…The robot by itself is fine, but you put a sword in it, it’s every bit as dangerous as a person with a sword.”

what makes them safe?

Rethink’s Baxter robot has a four-kg payload and features series elastic actuators. This technology uses springs to advance the robot’s motion control solution from one of rigid positioning to one of force control. This, according to the company, gives Baxter its smoothness of handling, so it won’t damage parts, fixtures and materials, or harm humans during operation. In addition, its smooth, pinch-proof exterior, combined with back-drivable motors and force-detecting sensors, are designed to minimize the impact of inadvertent contact. Embedded sensors allow Baxter to “feel” and compensate for common task variables in order to place parts into a fixture or alignment. The 18

robot recognizes and adjusts to subtle changes similar to its human co-workers, because Rethink designed it to operate in “human-like” ways.

“There are four sensors in each of [Baxter’s] joints,” says Lawton. “Any aspect of that arm can come in contact with you, and will immediately be able to respond and understand that it’s experiencing a force and the force can be controlled in a way to prevent somebody from being harmed by that. Because the springs are in series, there’s also a certain amount of give to the arm that absorbs some of the energy, so that when you do come in contact with it, the springs are absorbing some of the impact of that rather than you.”

Lawton says Baxter is so safe, none of its customers have it caged.

“We don’t have a single instance anywhere of a robot being in a cage or being guarded in any way.

There’s not one that’s being guarded,” he says.

“There is an envelope that collaborative robots are going to have to operate in to be able to maintain safety,” explains Lawton. “There are some tasks that require heavier payloads, but when you start to combine a really

November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

long reach with a heavy payload, with a lot of speed at the tip, that’s when you get all the kinetic energy that can actually hurt people...And in those circumstances, that’s what’s going to require the thing to be caged.”

Universal Robots’ UR5 and UR10 robot arms feature “smart joints,” says Moolayil.

“They have force sensing built into these joints. It’s continuously monitoring the force on each joint. And if there’s a force spike sensed in any of these (i.e., if it runs into something, there’s a force spike)…it will just stop. That’s what makes these guys safe to work with,” says Moolayil.

UR’s third-generation robot arms can operate in reduced mode when someone enters the robot’s work cell, and then resume full speed when the operator leaves. Or the robot can run full speed inside a CNC machine, for example, and reduced speed when outside. The company’s patented safety system monitors eight safety functions: joint position and speed, TCP position, orientation, speed and force, as well as the momentum and power of the robot.

For Yaskawa’s offerings, it’s the Functional Safety Unit that makes most of its robots (equipped with its latest controllers) safe to use in collaborative environments.

“It’s the functional safety. Collaborative means, from a controls perspective, it means you can be in the safeguarded space of that robot. You’re within reach of that robot, and you can be there safely,” Nieves says.

With these and other collaborative offerings on the market, VanKessel says a risk assessment is necessary to make sure the application is really safe.

“I’ve had a couple of people now try and say, ‘We don’t need guarding because it’s a collaborative robot.’

But at the same time, they’ve got a pin on the end-ofarm tooling that’s an inch and a half long and three eighths of an inch in diameter. Well if a three-eighthsof-an-inch pin hit me in the head, it’s going to do some serious damage, even if it’s only five pounds or a five-kilo application. It’s going to crack my skull.

And it’s assessing those risks that drives the whole project,” VanKessel says.

It’s going to be a learning process for manufacturers, says Esben Ostergaard, founder and CTO of Universal Robots.

“You can’t just put a robot up without fences and say it’s a safe robot, because you really have to consider the risk in the installation,” he says.

Though the Danish company says that, after initial risk assessment, 80 per cent of its robots are used in collaborative environments without safety guarding.

are collaborative robots right for you?

Customers are embracing this new class of robots, says Nieves, because it allows them to be both safe and productive.

“Their productivity goes up, for one, and they haven’t traded productivity for safety — they’ve just gained productivity.”

But there are several factors to consider before bringing collaborative robots into your environment.

Lawton says it really comes down to whether the robot can perform the task, and whether it can do the task cost effectively.

“Think broadly about what one means when talking about collaborative robots. It’s not just about getting them out of the cage. What you really need them to do is perform tasks and have very human-like

characteristics in the way they approach solving problems. When you think about them through that lens, it helps you identify the best places to deploy them [and] how to make them successful,” says Lawton.

But for VanKessel, it all comes down to that risk level.

“If the application is applying a lubricant to a product, it’s very easy to get a lubrication dispenser on the end of the robot that’s very safe. What’s the impact on the people around it? If we take a robot and ask it to do material handling, what does the part look like?

Does it have sharp edges? The minute it has a sharp edge, it could hit me in the head, so now we need guarding.”

Nieves says to look at your application, your use case.

“Your use case will point you in the direction of collaboration or not. And if collaboration, which flavour of collaboration makes the most sense for this particular application and installation?”

And when you’re at that point, says Nieves, the first thing is to look at the mechanical performance.

“What do you need to pick up? What do you need to handle? What do you need to do? So you still have to think in terms of payload and reach.”

Next, he says, consider what the operation looks like. Is the robot by itself? What is the level of interaction?

What does collaboration look like?

How portable do you need the system to be? And what other hazards does the application present?

GLOSSARY There are four “flavours” of collaboration that Yaskawa’s Erik Nieves describes.

• Stopped state monitoring - The robot stops when a human enters a scanned area, but continues to monitor the area until the operator leaves, at which time it resumes working.

• Speed and separation monitoring – The robot slows down when a human comes near, and may stop if the person gets too close.

• Hand guiding - The user is in direct contact with the robot while guiding and training it.

• Power and force limiting - Safety is achieved through restricting the amount of force available in the system.

These robots are limited in payload, acceleration and torque.

SEW-ManuAutomation7x10-Rocky-Oct2015.pdf 1 10/14/2014 5:18:31 PM

C

M

Y

CM

MY

what does the future hold?

CY

The industry is still at the front end of this emerging market, but Lawton predicts a lot of innovation ahead.

“There’s a lot more excitement ahead in terms of how all this comes together over time. There are just so many really interesting things you can do with collaborative robots,” says Lawton. “Over time, we’re also going to see that these robots are going to be able to be leveraged in ways that harness the power of big data and analytics, and the ability to learn from their experiences.”

He suggests that, in the future, robots will be able to learn from their experiences and change their own behaviours, and communicate these changed behaviours to other robots they’re working with.

This is just the beginning.

“There’s no question that collaborative robots are here to stay,” says Lawton.

“Every manufacturer is going to have a collaborative robot. In fact, many of them are going to have thousands of collaborative robots. And people won’t be competitive if they don’t.” • CMY

K

DOWN

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www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 19 2014-10-27 12:07 PM

R O B O T I C S

WHERE

NO ONE HAS GONE

BEFORE

By VANeSSA ChrIS

An innovative robotic application automates commercial cake decorating

T

he commercial baking industry is no stranger to automation.

For years, it has used machines to mass produce baked goods. Until now, however, the decorating of these items was reserved for manual labour — actual people waiting, with frosting bags in hand, to complete that final “Happy Birthday” on a cake, or an intricate swirl on a cupcake.

The reason for this somewhat archaic mode of decorating was simple — and something of which many industries suffer. Automation technology — more specifically, robotics — just didn’t have the capability to meet the demands required of such a delicate and varying application.

For a robot to be effective in this capacity, for example, it would have to be able to adapt to a wide range of applications — from writing on cakes to putting swirled icing on cupcakes. It would have to be able to carry a small, light nozzle weighing less than a kilogram for a line of cake writing, and then switch to a heavier decorating head weighing almost 15 kilograms to ice a 12-pack of cupcakes.

Delta robots, a popular off-the-shelf brand for the food industry, while easy-toclean and fast, can only carry a payload of up to five kilograms. In addition, because they’re typically used for pick-and-place, they have a work envelope that’s just too large for this type of application.

Despite these obstacles, Unifiller, a company that provides automation equipment to the baking industry, had a dream of automating the time-consuming task of cake decorating — something that, if accomplished, would not only distinguish the company from its competitors, but also revolutionize the commercial baked goods industry.

20

rather than hours.

The majority of these new components fell under the Allen-Bradley line, making them much more accessible and easier to replace than proprietary Delta parts.

He also chose the Wittenstein TPM, an integrated servomotor with a gearbox that features low inertia, to allow the robot to move more dynamically while simultaneously tightening its footprint.

Exceeding expectations

The Decobot automates commercial decorating, and has applications in industrial environments, too.

from dream to reality Unifiller contacted Rob Antonides from Apex Motion Control, a Surrey, B.C.based design and service consulting company specializing in factory automation. Recognizing the desired application wouldn’t be easy to design, Martin Riis, product manager at Unifiller, decided to start small — asking Antonides to design a robot that would allow the company to simply make swirl decorations on cupcakes.

“The challenge I had was locating a standard off-the-shelf robot that was sanitary, had a high payload and a small footprint,” Antonides says.

He realized rather quickly that this would have to be a custom project. So

November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

he set to work, using the sanitary Delta robot as the base of his new “Decobot.”

He replaced the Delta robot’s long arms for shorter ones, thus increasing the maximum payload to 25 kilograms while reducing the work area from a two-metre diameter to 400 millimetres. The shorter arms shrunk the overall footprint of the robot, allowing it to be mounted onto the conveyor — rather than beside it — including all the required guarding.

Straying from the traditional XYZ Cartesian system in favour of the Delta, Antonides was also able to offer a robot that was not only easy to disassemble and clean, but whose bearings or motors could be replaced in a matter of minutes

As the Decobot began to take shape, it became obvious that it would be able to do much more than simply add swirls onto cupcakes. So, with Riis’ help, Antonides started to take the application further.

“We merged our know-how of the baking industry with Rob’s knowledge of robotics, and ended up with something that’s very useful to the industry,” Riis says. “The biggest challenge was designing a robot that understood how the different materials flow and behave.

We spent a lot of time working on that.”

For example, when batter bakes, the surface isn’t flat but rather dome-shaped — and different types of batter, along with different types of baked goods, rise to different height profiles. If a robot was going to perform intricate designs on these surfaces, it would have to somehow take these variables into consideration.

Antonides addressed this by outfitting the robot with full X, Y and Z travel, so different cake heights can be handled automatically within an operator parameter. In critical applications, the robot can be connected to 3D vision systems that can scan the height of each cake and send the information to the robot, which in turn automatically compensates.

“The robot uses a laser-generated line and industrial cameras to measure and compensate for the varying heights in cakes, and also for the overall domed profile,” he says.

not just for baked goods Before the Decobot, baked goods would have to travel along a conveyor and stop at a specific station to be decorated. Thanks to the application’s 3D vision guidance, there is no longer a need to stop the line — the robot can decorate the cupcakes as they move, shaving significant time off the production process.

Antonides believes this thought process can easily be adapted to meet the needs of other industries. Any scenario where you have parts moving along a conveyor that need to be indexed or stopped at a specific station would be ideal for this type of application.

“One example might be a part that needs fasteners. You could attach an automatic screw feeder and screw insertion tool on the robot head. The robot would insert the screws and follow the part as it travels along the conveyor,” Antonides says. “Another example might be if a laser marker was required to mark different areas of a part. The parts could be marked without being stopped.”

Antonides says the robot could also be tweaked to meet the needs of any industry — including putting the robot on wheels so it could move freely up and down a continuously moving conveyor.

It could also be used to aid in quality control, by identifying damaged parts.

The simplicity of the Decobot’s user interface is also something that can be of value to other industries.

“Most of the people using equipment in a bakery aren’t familiar with robots — they don’t have a programming background or anything,” Antonides says.

“We needed this to be very intuitive.

Almost 50 per cent of the work was getting the interface right.”

He wanted the process to be as simple as using an iPad, so he created a tablet where the user can draw a design or write a message for a cake using a stylus pen.

“When we were first designing the machine, we’d draw the cake designs in AutoCad and the robot would use that as its template,” Antonides says.

“The problem was, it looked too perfect. With the tablet, the designs on the cakes look handmade, even though they’re mass produced.”

Riis says the user interface Antonides created well exceeded Unifiller’s expectations.

“When employees don’t have an automation background, they can get nervous when you introduce automation into their facility. They’re scared of it,” he says. “But Rob made it so simple to maintain and interact with. You can take anyone off the street and train them on this in two to three hours.”

looking ahead Although Unifiller has seen a lot of interest in its new Decobot, with large crowds gathering at a recent tradeshow to watch it in action, George Takei sharing its video on Facebook and even TLC’s Cake Boss inquiring about it, the company only just sold its first machine to a Canadian bakery in September. That’s not a surprise, though.

“We’ve seen a huge amount of interest in the technology. People are always interested in new technology,” Riis says.

“In our line of work, however, it can take from six months to two years to turn that interest into a sale.”

The company that recently purchased a Decobot will likely be making twice as many cakes once it’s installed, Riis says.

With that ROI, he expects robotics will start to take over the commercial baking industry before too long, and Unifiller, with the help of Apex Motion Control, plans to be ready when that peak in demand occurs.

“Robotics is definitely in our future.

To achieve these types of results without robotics, the footprint would be three to four times larger. This solution is ideal for factories that are looking to maximize space,” he says. “For now, we’re focusing on finding new applications for this robot and potentially extending it beyond a standalone work cell. We’d like to design a smaller table-top model for retail bakeries as well.” • Vanessa Chris is a freelance writer based in Guelph, Ont.

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Visit www.techspan .ca call 1-800-363-1588 email sales@techspan.ca

Techspan_MA_Nov.indd 1

www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 21 2014-10-27 9:34 AM

I N N O V A T I O N

innovation

101

How to capitalize on opportunities and gain a competitive advantage

By ShAWN CASeMOre

W

hen you think of innovation, what names come to mind? Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson? Or you might think of companies like Apple, Google or Zappos — companies that have set the bar through the continuous introduction of new products and services, both inside and outside their niche.

In each of the above examples, technology has played a significant role in putting these individuals and companies on the map; however, this has also influenced our beliefs relative to innovation, creating the perception that only through technology are we able to capitalize on innovation.

Fortunately, this perception is wrong.

As innovation transcends industries, sectors and even countries, I’ve spent considerable time working with and studying some of the most innovative and recognizable companies of our time — companies like GE, Bruce Power and Proctor & Gamble. It’s become obvious that having the ability to capitalize on innovation is not based on investments in technology, but rather lies in an organization’s ability to create systems and processes that facilitate the capture, validation and integration of unique and powerful ideas.

Not surprisingly, I’ve found that these companies all follow a similar formula for capturing and capitalizing on innovation. This formula is a pragmatic process for identifying and bringing new ideas to life. In fact, the lack of complexity in these innovation programs allows for any company, regardless of sector or size, to formulate and introduce an innovation program of its own by remembering the following four points.

1.

innovation is under your nose

2.

ideas don’t always come easy

3.

every good idea started out crazy

4.

when it comes to ideas, value and speed are a priority

Early in my career, I managed an operational team that incorporated a group of procurement professionals. Each day, there were virtually dozens of cold calls and meetings that occurred between existing and potential suppliers and the procurement team. These calls were perceived as a nuisance to the team, interrupting what they considered to be more important tasks. As a result, the managers went about identifying ways to avoid supplier meetings and interactions. In essence, they were killing innovation opportunities before they had a chance to flourish. Companies like Proctor & Gamble have recognized this opportunity and created an “Open Innovation” forum where they connect and collaborate with external inventors, suppliers and contractors to create and capture ideas on new products. Innovation is right under your nose; you just need to tap into it.

For innovation to be successful, you must poke, prod and provoke your greatest sources of ideas into overcoming their mental perceptions of what is actually possible. Kimberly-Clark recognized that although employees held the key to new and innovative solutions, there were barriers and existing mental models that restricted these ideas from being realized. As a result, Kimberly-Clark formed a process whereby the company frequently brought outside thought leaders into their organization to work with internal business teams to overcome mental models and create innovative strategies and ideas. Are you enticing and provoking employees and leaders to think beyond what they believe is possible to find new and innovative solutions?

It wasn’t until an employee stumbled across some snow globes during an annual conference that Disney’s “Blizzard Beach” concept came to life. The very idea of a beach immersed in a snowstorm may seem a little off-the-wall, but as a one of Disney’s major attractions today, this perceivably crazy idea has made positive contributions to the financial success of Disney. Locating and capitalizing on innovative ideas requires an open mind, along with the willingness to consider counter-intuitive and contrarian ideas.

Are you enticing leaders, employees and other stakeholders to identify off-the-wall ideas?

With all of the sources of innovative ideas tapped into, the task of identifying and investing in the most valuable ideas can be daunting. However, timing is crucial. Would Tesla have created a recognizable and sought-after brand in electric vehicles had they decided to wait a couple more years? Processes to facilitate the capture, validation and implementation of new and innovative ideas must focus on prioritizing each idea based on their value (to the company, its customers and vision) and speed (how quickly the idea can be brought to life). Do you have a process to contrast new ideas against value and speed?

Despite what many might have you believe, innovation is not a complex process. It is a valuable tool that can be engrained into your company’s daily operations, forming a competitive advantage that can survive the life of the organization.

Isn’t it time you considered incorporating an innovation process for your organization? • Shawn Casemore (@ShawnCasemore) is the president and founder of Casemore and Co Incorporated (www.casemoreandco.com), a management consultancy helping businesses build companies that employees and customers value.

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November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

The Revolution in Linear Systems High Performance Linear System

High Performance Linear System Featuring the RP+ The performance capability of the rack and pinion system achieves a new dimension with the High Performance Linear System. While others are still engaged in adapting existing solutions, WITTENSTEIN alpha is once again several steps ahead with its advanced linear system. The innovative High Performance Linear System is employed in applications where individual requirements go significantly beyond previous possibilities.

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RPK+ Right-Angle

MACHINE SAFETY

Q&A:

A look at Firestone Textiles’ approach to health and safety

By MAry DeL CIANCIO

LOCATE YOUR ADVANTAGE Through our Canadian Manufacturing Network, EMC has launched a national labour market initiative - ManufacturingGPS an advanced new tool aimed at placing Canadian industry on the global productivity map.

Kim Davie is the manager of health and safety with Firestone Textiles, based in Woodstock, Ont. Manufacturing AUTOMATION had the chance to chat with Davie about the textile manufacturer’s approach to safety, and his role in managing the health and safety of the 200-plus employees at the manufacturing plant.

MA

Tell me about the health and safety program at Firestone, and what your role is in carrying it out.

Kim Davie: I look at my role primar-

Through an in-depth LMI study with 5,000 manufacturers coastto-coast, ManufacturingGPS will host a fully searchable resource, to help industry track key workforce trends and occupational intelligence, including critical information needed to grow productivity: - Compensation Rates - Skills Needs/Shortages - Productivity Cluster Info - HR Surveys and LMI Data - Capabilities Resources - Benchmarking by Sector, Region All in one unique online portal… the first of its kind in Canada!

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ily [as] the conductor. I am the health and safety department; however, since health and safety is everyone’s responsibility, everybody has a level of responsibility throughout my plant — not only my managers and my staff supervisors, but also my workers as well. That’s basically how it works at this facility. I have a classic industrial environment — forklift traffic, mobile equipment challenges, material handling. I also have chemicals, because we are a polymerization plant, as well as a weaving and twisting plant. So it’s a fairly classic industrial environment.

MA

In terms of machine safety, what steps do you take to make sure employees on the plant floor are safe?

C ON TAC T U S T O GE T IN VOLV E D

GPS@CanadianManufacturingNetwork.ca

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Kim Davie: Of course we’re pretty adamant on training from the operator standpoint. They go through currently about four hours of orientation before they get on the floor.

That’s going to go up to about six hours in the new year. And then they go down to the floor, and they are with a person training, and they have to meet several milestones throughout the training. It’s six to 12 weeks

November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

EMC_MA_Nov.indd 1

2014-10-21 3:34 PM

[depending on the position] before they’re actually qualified to do the job on their own…[For] the equipment itself, any new or modified equipment will go through an equipment release process. If it’s new equipment, we’ll buy new equipment and then we’ll actually get an engineering company in to go through it once it’s in the site and installed. And then we’ll also have a management review, and a management PSR [Pre-start Health and Safety Review] release as well. So there are four stages…There’s an engineering release from a standards standpoint.

And then there’s a productivity release — ensuring that it’s productive and does what it’s supposed to do. And then there’s a safety review…and a management review [where we] go through the equipment in its realm.

So when equipment is installed and it’s able to operate, then we’ll do one final safety check.

MA

In the past, I’ve heard the argument that sometimes safety gets in the way of productivity. how are you able to balance the two, and make sure the employees on the plant floor are both safe and productive?

Kim Davie: I don’t have to balance the two, because safety will be there.

And that comes from my corporate office as well, not only my management team…Both have to go hand in hand.

MA

What is your key to success where occupational health and safety are concerned?

Kim Davie: The key to the success of this facility is really accountability. I have a very strong belief in my corporate level, which is in Nashville, that safety is a large value that they hold close. And that’s driven down from my CEO. So what that ultimately means is every year I have certain achievements that everybody has to make in health and safety. So every manager has a list of things they have to do. Every supervisor has a list of things they have to do.

And they’re all safety-related. And there are typically about 20 to 30 items. I audit that every quarter. So basically I go around to every supervisor and staff member and manager, whether they’re my superior or not, and I audit them to make sure they’re getting done, and I report it directly to corporate. And of course I get audited, too. Everybody gets audited. But that’s holding people accountable.

MA

What is your biggest challenge in making sure that your employees on the plant floor are safe?

Kim Davie: My biggest challenge is probably culture. ‘This is the way we’ve always done it.’ The plant is an older plant. Firestone Textiles has been in the community for 75 years.

MA

how do you get buy-in from employees to make sure that everyone is participating in the program?

Kim Davie: Well, there’s lots of ways to do it. Safety rules are number one.

Bypassing guards in my facility would be a free trip to HR. And we take that very seriously. And that does go up to a termination at times, depending on the severity. But if it’s something new, if we bring in new equipment or new ideas, we will bring the employees involved with it [in] at the time it’s being developed, and then roll it out with their buy-in already. So at least you have some of the employees that have bought into it already, and they’re using the equipment the way it’s supposed to be [used].

leading indicators and lagging indicators — first aid, near misses, incidents, non-lost-time, lost-time. Another big rule of thumb for me is near-miss reporting. If I get too many near misses, I get concerned. If I get too little near misses, I get concerned. So that is a big leading indicator for me.

MA

For smaller manufacturers with fewer employees and, perhaps, less money to invest in safety, do you have any suggestions for them? Where should they start when

make. If you want big change, you have to start at the top.

And if your general manager or manager has bought into safety, he’s got to be able to show it. He’s got to be able to be visible. Hands on, visible and on the floor is a big thing with a small facility, particularly. •

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the new CSG-LW and CSF-LW gearheads are 30% lighter than previous designs without reducing the torque rating or significantly changing interface dimensions.

The CSG high-torque gearhead delivers 30% more torque and 40% longer life while maintaining zero-backlash, 1 arc-min accuracy, and ± 5 arc-sec repeatability.

A high capacity cross roller bearing and output flange is used to support the driven load. A wide variety of sizes and reduction ratios are available with maximum peak torques ranging from 450 in-lb. to 60,500 in-lb.

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how do you measure the effectiveness of your safety program?

I look at the overall picture of the facility. I look at

Kim Davie: It depends on how much change you want to

New Small Hollow Shaft Servo Actuator

MA

Kim Davie:

it comes to developing and carrying out a successful health and safety program?

backlash, and accuracy better than 1 arc-minute.

Gear reduction ratios of 30:1 through 160:1 are available without change in weight or form factor. CSD Component Sets are offered in five different component sizes with peak output torques ranging from 1.8 Nm to 9,180 Nm, depending on unit size and ratio. Custom configurations are available with minimal cost to meet your application requirements.

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HarmonicDrive_MA_Nov.indd 1

www.AutomationMag.com • November/December 2014 25 2014-10-17 3:02 PM

P R O D U C T S Motors

an d

D r i v es

Cabinet module drives

Siemens has announced a new version of its Sinamics S120 Cabinet Module (CM) drive packages, compliant with North American standards and offered with optional UL/cUL listing. This product enables easy configuration of complex common DC bus lineups for multi-motor co-ordinated drive systems, as well as high horsepower standalone drives for a wide variety of industrial applications, the company says. Individual cabinet modules from Siemens have a standardized power and control interface, which allows them to be freely positioned in a lineup that best suits the particular application and makes them easy to install and connect.

A broad range of standard options is available to tailor selections to best meet jobsite and environmental conditions. www.siemens.ca

Products app Bosch Rexroth’s GoTo Products app is a mobile app for customers to access Rexroth’s GoTo Focused Delivery Program.

The app is available for iPad, iPhone and

Android devices, with specific pricing and sales contact information. The GoTo Products app includes all of the latest additions to Rexroth’s GoTo Focused Delivery Program, with a sync-on-demand feature that lets users update the

app with the latest product offering any time, wherever they are. In addition, the app has how-to videos, podcasts and technical information, and users can now share content to social media channels directly through the app. A My GoTo Resources feature allows users to save frequently accessed content from the app and organize it into folders for later reference. www.boschrexroth.ca/GoTo

PowerXL variable frequency drives also offer different open- and closed-loop control methods. The DC1 controls the motor with U/f characteristics and also enables an increased torque. The DA1 models also offer the user the possibility of sensorless vector control (SLV), as well as closed-loop control with a rotary encoder (CLV). The drives come as standard with the Modbus RTU and CANopen fieldbus system. www.eatoncanada.ca

Linear drive

Variable frequency drives The new PowerXL variable frequency drive series consists of two models: The DC1 Compact and the DA1 Advanced Machinery Drive. The DC1 was developed for applications where robust design, availability and universal functionality are the main requirements. The DA1 series is suitable for the most demanding solutions requiring high performance. The

Amacoil-Uhing Model RG linear drive assemblies now feature an option for fine adjustment of travel distance. The option enables more precise location of the drive unit reversal points. This is useful in linear motion applications where precision

setting of the reversal points enhances process accuracy and integrity, the company says. The Model RG drive is used in various types of production equipment, including converting/packaging machinery, wire/cable spooling equipment and other automated machinery with a linear motion component. www.amacoil.com

Induction motor product line

Baldor Electric Company’s new line of energy-efficient electric motors features the Large AC – GPM induction motor, available in up to 1,500 HP. Large AC – GPM motors are available in stock ratings of 250 to 1,000 HP, 2300/4000 volt, Totally Enclosed Fan Cooled (TEFC), foot mounted designs.

Custom motors are available in 250 to 1,500 HP, 460, 575, 2300/400 volt, TEFC, in foot-mounted designs. The GPM product line of large AC motors fits various industrial applications, including pumps, fans, conveyors and compressors requiring high torque. www.baldor.com

Roboti cs Tabletop robot

Gripper Available from Empire Robotics, the Versaball is a new gripper archetype able to flexibly adapt to multiple, automated manufacturing tasks. It is designed to cut engineering time and costs for custom tooling and complex handling tasks.

Unlike hard grippers, the balloon-shaped Versaball conforms to and grips a wide range of objects without reprogramming.

Intelligent Actuator’s TTA Series tabletop robots, available through Electromate, feature a maximum payload of 20 kg for work part side (X axis), and five kg for tool side (Z axis). Maximum speed is 800 mm/sec (X and Y axis), and 400 mm/sec (Z axis). The robots have a larger memory than previous models, allowing them to store more programs and positions. The additional data recovery function makes sure the original data can be restored should writing to a flash drive fail due to a power failure, the company explains.

When the standard I/O slot isn’t enough, up to two additional expansion I/O slots can be installed. Four operating ranges are available to choose from. www.electromate.com

26

The new end-of-arm tool will pick and place objects ranging from light gearwheels to heavy bricks and delicate light bulbs — all in the same cycle without any changes to the application. The Versaball is a squishy balloon membrane full of loose sub-millimetre particles. Using a process known as “granular jamming,” air is quickly sucked out of the ball,

November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

which vacuum-packs the particles and hardens the gripper around the object to hold and lift it. The object releases when the ball is reinflated. Versaball comes in 3.5- and 6.5-inch head models that use the same pneumatic base. www.empirerobotics.com

Robot sensor system Servo-Robot has developed i-CUBE, an integrated robot sensor system designed to be easily integrated to articulated robots and to provide 3D high-speed and high-precision part measurements. It also allows remote HDR colour viewing of the workpiece and tool area, process sound emission monitoring, and programmable real-time 3D feature recognition capabilities. i-CUBE has a compact footprint and is able to resist severe environments involving high temperatures, electrical and electromagnetic emissions and metallic spatter, the company says. www.servorobot.com

Mobile robot The QC Bot from Vecna Technologies is an autonomous mobile robot. Powered by an intelligent navigation system, the

solution transports materials securely throughout the facility to meet changing demands with improved quality and without compromising human safety, the company says. The QC Bot features an onboard touchscreen user interface that allows for easy command and control of the robot. The intelligent navigation enables the robot to navigate through unstructured environments, commanding doors and elevators via wireless signals.

QC Bot does not need tracks, lines or mirrors for navigation. And because it self docks itself at the end of a shift, it’s available 24/7. Security has been addressed with user authentication via RFID reader, barcode scanner, magnetic stripe reader and biometric palm vein scanning. www.vecna.com

P R O D U C T S

c o MMuni cat i o n s EtherNet/IP support

AutomationDirect’s Productivity3000 controller supports the ODVA’s EtherNet/IP as a standard protocol. Through its embedded Ethernet port, the P3-550 CPU can support EtherNet/IP configurable as a scanner or adapter (or both simultaneously). The P3-550 CPU can communicate to devices using either Explicit messaging or Implicit “I/O” messaging methods. These two common implementations offer access to the majority of the EtherNet/IP devices available in the industry, including third-party controllers, drives and other I/O hardware. In scanner mode, the P3-550 CPU supports up to 128 total connections with a maximum of 32 devices. Enabling the CPU to support and exchange EtherNet/ IP messages simply requires completing fill-in-the-blank style configuration and message instruction windows in the programming software. To assist with implementation, diagnostic tags are available to help determine which layer of the protocol may be preventing successful communications. www.automationdirect.com

Controllers with integrated I/O

B&R has expanded the X20 system to include a new series of compact controllers with integrated I/O. Additional I/O modules can be connected either locally or remotely using cables. These new compact controllers are being offered in a wide range of variants with different levels of performance and features. Each of these systems comes equipped with 32 built-in digital and analog I/O channels and an x86 processor as standard features.

Integrated POWERLINK, standard Ethernet, CAN, RS232 and USB interfaces are also available. www.br-automation.com

Stainless steel EtherCAT Box I/O The Beckhoff EQxxxx EtherCAT Box I/O series in durable V2A stainless steel

an d

n e t w o r K in g

housings are rated at protection class IP 69K. As a result, these I/O modules are designed for use directly on machines in application areas with demanding hygienic requirements, such as in the food, packaging, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. A wide range of digital and analog units in this new product series covers numerous I/O signal requirements. The modules featuring IP 69K protection and stainless steel finish allow processes and signals in hygienically critical areas to be measured, evaluated and controlled directly on the machine with the high performance of EtherCAT. The EQxxxx EtherCAT Box series is qualified for the extended temperature range of -25 to 60 degrees C (storage temperature -40 to 85 degrees C), and can be used in extreme climatic zones. Through the integrated EtherCAT interface, the EQxxxx modules can be connected directly to an EtherCAT network without an additional Coupler Box. www.beckhoffautomation.com

Push-in connection technology Phoenix Contact’s push-in products utilize tool-free wiring, making them easy-to-wire, and ensuring quick and reliable wiring times for all wire gauges (26-3/0 AWG), the company says.

5.08-mm sizes; and 1.27- and 2.54-mm sizes. The SMC (through hole) termination connectors come in a box with dry bag (MSL 2a), while the full SMT connectors are delivered in tape and reel packaging (MSL 1). For automated assembly, PCB makers can place and reflow har-flexicon device side components along with all other board components — capacitors, resistors, integrated circuits, etc. — in a single SMT or SMD production run, as opposed to separate steps using reflow and wave solder processes. www.harting.ca

The integrated button enables easy release of the connected wire with the use of any tool. The company says its push-in products can reduce installation time by 30 per cent. www.phoenixcontact.ca

HMI with serial/Ethernet drivers

Carlo Gavazzi’s CGHMI Series of HMIs is available in four sizes, and constructed in one of up to three different housing bezels — economical plastic, durable aluminum or rugged, wash-down resistant stainless steel. The CGHMI Series features ARM processors, wide panels, high-resolution, 65,536 colours, 128 MB ROM, 128/256 MB RAM, WinCE operating system and image optimization. The screens are available in four sizes (4.3, 7, 10 or 15 inches).

The HMIs can be mounted vertically or horizontally, and can be powered by 11 to 36 VDC or 90 to 250 VAC. All models also offer an SD slot and Ethernet port as standard features. Extensive connectivity is possible via Profibus-DP, ProfiNet, DeviceNet, EtherNet/IP, CANopen, EtherCAT and CC-Link. www.gavazzionline.com

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Wire-to-board connectors Harting’s har-flexicon series of discrete wire-to-board connectors and terminal blocks are designed to deliver greater PCB performance and density with robust connectivity. These har-flexicon SMT (Surface Mount Termination) components for pluggable, single-conductor wiring of I/O signals are available in two main pitch categories: traditional 3.5- to

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P R O D U C T S Autom atio n

S o f t ware

Routing software

it into a routing product whose compact housing allows it to be accommodated in the production area. www.belden.com

Software suite

Belden is offering a new, free software version that has routing functionality for Hirschmann switches in the Rail Switch Power (RSP), Rail Switch Power Expandable (RSPE) and MICE Switch Power (MSP) families. The Hirschmann Operating System (HiOS) 4.0 supports various security mechanisms, comprehensive management and diagnostic methods, precise time synchronization, and redundancy protocols, thus ensuring maximum network availability, the company says.

The new HiOS 4.0 software is compatible with other routing products from Hirschmann, such as the MACH4000 and MACH1040 industrial Ethernet devices, as well as with products from other manufacturers. Using standard technology, HiOS 4.0 provides static routing functionality for RSP switches and dynamic routing functionality for MSP switches, thus ensuring that Layer 3 technology is available throughout the network. The new software equips the RSP switch with the required Layer 3 functionality, turning

P r oce ss

Aptean’s Discrete Manufacturing solution suite is designed to integrate sales, operations, inventory and financial processes for discrete manufacturers. It connects Aptean’s Made2Manage ERP solution with the company’s new Sales for Discrete Manufacturing CRM solution, which was built specifically to connect customer and production data throughout the opportunity-to-cash-process, and ensure accurate customer and production information throughout the customer order life cycle. This combination provides discrete manufacturers with complete sales force automation and data sharing between the customer profile and ERP. The Aptean Discrete Manufacturing suite also features Aptean Analytics for Discrete Manufacturing, business intelligence designed to provide interactive, discrete manufacturing-focused dashboards highlighting trends in sales, marketing, production, quality, inventory, finance, purchasing and shipping. These dashboards can be accessed via mobile devices and personalized to display role-specific metrics. www.aptean.com

S a f e ty

Sensorless standstill monitor Wieland Electric has expanded its product line of machine safety devices with a sensorless standstill monitor compatible with all types of motors. The DIN rail mounted SVM4001K Series standstill monitor uses electromagnetic feedback, or back EMF, technology to provide machine safety engineers with a sensorless method of detecting motion in virtually all types of machinery applications, including high-speed rollers, slitters and winding equipment. The monitor is rated for 690 volts, and frequencies up to five kHz. It is compatible with single- and three-phase AC motors, DC motors and variable frequency drive and servo-driven motors. The monitor module features selectable voltage thresholds and programmable time delays, enabling machine safety engineers to customize the device to their particular application. www.wieland-safety.com

Safety system design software Engineers designing machinery safety systems can now more easily collaborate

across multiple languages using the Safety Automation Builder software tool from Rockwell Automation. The software — designed to help engineers save time when designing safety systems — automates the safety-selection process. Users import an image of the machinery they need to safeguard and answer questions using a drop-down menu and help screens to identify and select the necessary safeguards. The software then compiles all product selections, generates a bill of materials, and compiles necessary data to populate IFA’s SISTEMA (Safety Integrity Software Tool for Evaluation of Machine Applications). SISTEMA helps evaluate the system in accordance with ISO 138491:2008. The software, which is available as a free download from the Rockwell Automation website, requires that users download and run SISTEMA, which is available in a limited number of languages. However, the Safety Automation Builder tool’s expanded language functionality allows engineers to more easily generate SISTEMA reports outside of their local language. The new languages include Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish. www.rockwellautomation.com

C o n t ro l

Temperature transmitter

Omega’s M12TX temperature transmitter features a sensor with a built-in transmitter that can be programmable by a computer, moulded connector (IP67), M12 connection, four to 20 mA output and a -50 to 500 degrees C temperature range. The probe is ideal for areas with space limitations where traditional head connections are too large to fit. www.omega.ca

and stainless steel. All manifolds have vertical and horizontal mounting holes to allow for multiple mounting options. www.parker.com/fcd

Level transmitter

Parker Hannifin’s Fluid Control Division (FCD) has launched a series of manifolds for the Miniature Cartridge Valves (209 Series). The manifolds and valves are intended to be stocked and assembled at the distributor to provide end customers with quick turnaround and local support.

The manifolds are designed to accept FCD’s standard offering of 209 normally closed cartridge valves. Standard coil options include various voltages and wire connections, and come in open frame or encapsulated (NEMA 4X) coils. The manifolds are available in two, three, four, six and eight stations, in both aluminum

the head pressure (LP). Each sensor sends a digital signal corresponding to temperature compensated measured pressure to the transmitter. This electronic system eliminates issues of traditional differential pressure measurements by doing away with impulse lines or capillaries and their related issues of icing, clogging, leaks, condensation and changing ambient temperatures, the company explains. www.us.endress.com

Submersible pressure transducers

Solenoid valve manifold

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M ac h ine

Endress+Hauser’s Deltabar FMD71 level transmitter uses two pressure sensor modules, each connected electronically to a single transmitter. Using a Ceraphire ceramic sensor in the pressure sensor modules, the transmitter calculates the differential pressure from both sensors and transmits the level, volume or mass via 4-20 mA with HART as a standard two-wire loop-powered device.

One sensor module measures the hydrostatic pressure (HP), and the other one

November/December 2014 • Manufacturing AUTOMATION

PT-503 Submersible Pressure Transducers, from Automation Products Group (APG), feature PVC housing specifically built for chemical compatibility.

The transducers deliver long life and reliable operation in environments with regular and prolonged exposure to harsh and potentially corrosive chemicals, even at temperatures from -30 to 130 degrees F and depths to 450 ft., the company says. They feature temperature compensation, built-in

lightning protection, and are quickly and easily zeroed in the field. www.apgsensors.com

Temperature transmitters

Honeywell Process Solutions’ new range of SmartLine industrial temperature transmitters are designed to improve overall plant and employee efficiency, even in harsh and noisy process environments. SmartLine temperature transmitters are designed to lower plant life cycle costs by making it easier to maintain field devices with their efficiency-enhancing features, such as an advanced graphic display capable of showing process data in graphical formats and communicating messages from the control room. In addition, all SmartLine transmitters, whether they measure pressure or temperature, utilize modular components that simplify field repairs and reduce the parts inventory required to make those repairs. www.honeywellprocess.com

P R O D U C T S

M ate ria l

H an d l i n g

Long-stroke gripper

Electric chain hoist Columbus McKinnon Corporation now offers the CM Man Guard electric chain hoist with CSA approval for the Canadian market. The hoist is ideal for heavy-duty lifting applications with an H4 duty rating and long service life. It also ships fast, with more than 40 models guaranteed to ship in three days or less, the company says. The hoist is designed to provide operator safety through

The standardized CGH lightweight gripper from Schunk is the result of modern simulation methods, intensive test series, and economic manufacturing processes.

The long-stroke gripper benefits from the specific material characteristics of CFC — its E-value is four times higher, and its tensile force is twice as high as aluminum, the company says, adding that the gripper weight has been reduced by 40 per cent. The gripper housing has been manufactured according to specific stress requirements, using the RTM process. The result is a light, yet sturdy gripper, which has a correspondingly torsional stiffness. At a weight of 11.7 kg, the CGH has a gripping force of 2.500 N, and a variable stroke per gripper finger of up to 160 mm. The gripper can handle workpieces up to 12.8 kg. www.schunk.com

Gripping jaws

overload protection designed to help prevent serious injury or catastrophic damage to the hoist, load and supporting structure. In addition to CSA approval, the Man Guard also meets ANSI and ASME standards, as well as NEC electrical codes.

The hoist is metric rated and available in capacities ranging from 1/4 to three tons, with standard lifts up to 20 feet. www.cmworks.com

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Turned or bored soft blank top jaws from Dillon Manufacturing provide a smooth gripping surface that holds the workpiece snugly as a result of a greater coefficient of friction, so there’s no marring of the workpiece. Extra wide jaws are available to provide a wider gripping surface, especially for large diameter parts. Dillon serrated soft-top jaws are available in up to 10-inch heights. Tongue-and-groove, Acme key style, or square serrated style jaws can be produced to 14-inch heights, so they are well suited for longer workpieces. Dillon Manufacturing uses optical checking to ensure proper pitch and form on their mounting serrations. Special soft-top jaws are ideal for second operation finishing work, such as shafts, gear blanks, wheel hub, bearings, or extra-long workpieces requiring special attention and handling. www.dillonmfg.com

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R E A L I T I E S

Future gazing

By DICK MOrLey

A

lmost everything in automation needs sensing and measurement. There’s definitely a bright future here. That’s why I’m focusing this month’s column on future trends in sensitivity and measurement — a fitting topic as we say goodbye to another year and look at what’s ahead.

Since we are talking about the future, we can’t be too accurate. We just need to look at existing trends. So what exactly are some of the trends? The thrust into artificial intelligence initiated by IBM’s game-playing machines was paramount. The ability for machines to make inferences “better than humans” is a significant benchmark for the future. Classical future criteria such as smaller, smarter components, lower cost and more reliable systems are clear. But the impact of IBM’s Wilson will be a 10-year renaissance of computer technology.

In the future, the sensitivity of sensors and measurements will be improved, the size will be reduced and the cost will become more palatable. We will be able to measure more than the usual. We will be able to measure the abstracts of density, composition and purity.

Purity and density of medical production are key to consistent results. It also reduces the cost. This clearly has an impact on health and food. As an older fellow in the automation business, I take many medications, both prescription and over-the-counter. Supplier confidence and manufacturing is a key element to cost reduction.

Animal and human tests are expensive and need to be extrapolated across a broader spectrum of usage. The statistics of food and medicine and other critical elements should be a function of the automation system, not of post-production and analysis.

Today, we want to know about the material that’s being processed. We want to know physical dimensions and contamination, and single measurements won’t cut the mustard. In the future, multiple, simple measurements will offer a road for inference. Statistical measurement and “loosely coupled sets” using statistics are the future. Since we are going to be sending all of our “stuff” off to the big data cloud, complexity of connectivity will be in the cloud and the measurement will be inferred, not necessarily actual.

Speaking of big data, the topological interface of an automation system will be represented by topological management in the cloud. The system of automation that we are now used to will become mostly software via manipulation of big data. This means that each sensing element will have an interface to a standardized cloud array that will represent the traffic manager of information for the system.

We can expect to see measurements made with considerations using nano and quantum mechanics.

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Nano carbon tubes will be used for very small accurate pressures. We may be able to build an elementary system on a desktop via USP connectivity. One example is printers. Printers at one time were the size of my barn. Now they are the size of my suitcase and even smaller. The actual size of processes will become small, since the size will depend only upon senses and effectors, not upon complexity and interconnection.

The system is being defined differently today.

A system consists of operators, power, environmental, marketing and outsourcing. In the future, the marketplace itself will be the control element that the system will respond to. Retail electric power already does this. Nobody physically manages the power output of a power station — it’s automatic. Soon automobiles, medicine and food will follow the same road.

Can you imagine a supermarket with shelves that replenish automatically?

Components in an automation system will be smaller, lower cost, computer- and crowd-compatible, and capable of modifying system performance based on market sensitivity. The work of building a system will become 80 per cent software and 20 per cent hardware. We will begin to design apps for automation that can be attached during the design of the automation system.

I sense great sources of innovation coming in most modern cultures. There’s no better time than now to get with it. •

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