Build It They Will Come

Manufacturers are taking leadership roles in supporting the emerging standards MTConnect® and ISO 13399 that share tool and machine data to help large and small shops improve their efficiencies and increase their capabilities.

As conferences go, it was not a record-breaker in terms of attendance. Nor were the announcements awaited with the same worldwide frenzy given the latest smart phone iteration or social media destination.

Yet the recent 2013 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference held this past April in Cincinnati, OH was instrumental in further preparing the foundation of a monumental change in how job shops, contract manufacturers and metal service centers can obtain, manage, and share their machine tool and tooling data.

Just as increasing manufacturing efficiencies and productivity are the primary goals of the MTConnect standard, several prominent manufacturers are supporting how these standards can work now and are among the industry leaders presenting how shops can use them to their benefit.

As recently as 2010, manufacturing industry research stated that about four or five percent of machine tools worldwide were connected to a formal data-collection system.

Each and every shop sits on a rich mine of data that it can collect for its own continued improvement, but a significant drawback is efficiently gathering the data from different makes and models of machines and tools. This has been likened to a permanently ongoing United Nations meeting with no translators.

The idea for an open shop floor standard that makes all shop floor data easily accessible and workable was conceived in 2006 by the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT; McLean, VA), with the first version of MTConnect released in 2008.

Then, in 2009, the MTConnect Institute, a not-for-profit 501(c)(6) organization, was established to further the development of the MTConnect standard and publish related materials. The organization includes a board of directors, a technical advisory group (MTCTAG), a technical steering committee, and various working groups to further the standard in specific technology areas.

Basically, MTConnect is an open, extensible, royalty-free standard – a communications protocol designed specifically for the shop-floor environment. By interfacing with machine tools, cutting tools, presetters or any piece of equipment or data source, software applications can be built on MTConnect standard for the efficient gathering, reporting, and use of a shop’s data.

Cutting tools can be an extremely valuable data source for shops to monitor, collect, and study according to Tom Muller, a senior manager with the Innovation Ventures Group at Kennametal Inc. (Latrobe, PA) who chairs the MTConnect Institute’s working group on cutting tools. He reported to the conference on ISO 13399 – Cutting Tool Data Representation and Exchange.

Noting that MTConnect is a protocol and that ISO 13399 is an international standard, Muller demonstrated that MTConnect does not have to go into the standards development business.

Since ISO 13399 already defines and standardizes such cutting tool attributes as cutting diameter, edge angle, body diameter, overall length, functional length, and functional width, among many others, MTConnect can simply adopt the ISO 13399 definitions and achieve a consistent language for exchanging data between machine tools, tool data management systems, presetters, and even CAD/CAM systems. Shops can literally monitor a customer’s project from art to part, efficiently gathering data from every step.

“The more we can drive the standardization of cutting tool data, the simpler and more efficient we can make a shop’s business,” notes Muller.

Consider machine tool utilization, for example, says Brian Papke, the president of machine tool builder Mazak Corporation (Florence, KY), one of the event sponsors and a strong proponent for MTConnect. “As customers strive to be competitive in a tough global marketplace, they need all the tools they can get to be the most productive they can be,” he explains. “MTConnect enables them to interface software programs with a standard protocol for different types of devices that allows them the information to clearly see what is happening on their factory floor. With this information, they can improve the overall utilization of their equipment.”

Think that through for just a moment. Imagine not only staying on top of the volumes of data your shop produces, but having each of your machine tools “know” what the presetter and the cutters “know” through the efficient exchange of data. Hours of setup, touch-offs, and test cutting could become a thing of the disorganized past. Tribal knowledge or “how Joe does it” can make way for organized and systematized methods that manufacture parts.

“This is not an evolution, this is a revolution in manufacturing,” proclaimed Dave Edstrom, the president and chairman of the board of the MTConnect Institute. “MTConnect is making possible the dreams and desires of generations of manufacturers, machine tool builders and manufacturing equipment providers who all want to see the same goal of different devices having a common connection on the plant floor. This year’s conference was a true inflection point for manufacturing, with insights from an extremely strong lineup of fantastic speakers, moderators, panelists and instructors.”

MTConnect is built and in place. Now the applications from the machine tool, tooling technology, and software leaders are coming. Are you on board?