c-COM was established last year as an open-cloud platform for the efficient handling of tools and tool-related data. Using the c-Com platform, customers and suppliers can maintain and share all their relevant tool data, according to clearly defined rules and access rights.
Image: L to R - Giari Fiorucci, manager at c-COM; Thomas Langhorst, electrical engineering design manager at Lübbering
At launch, Mapal said of its benefits: “Applied technical solutions could be compared within the company, for example the tools and machining parameters for the same workpieces produced at different sites. Standardisations and benchmarking strategies are thus supported. Stocks and procurement strategies could be harmonised and optimised at significantly reduced costs. The interaction between purchasing and production, and between purchasing and the suppliers is greatly simplified. Suppliers have the opportunity to provide more selective and new services.”
As of the middle of this year, c-Com GmbH has been established, with the 11-employee now located at a separate site to Mapal and managed by Giari Fiorucci (previously head of digital and logistics services at Mapal; image, left) and Dr Jochen Kress, Mapal board member and grandson of Mapal's founder, Dr Georg Kress. With this move, Mapal stresses that it is “only a customer or supplier of c-Com GmbH in the same way as any other company”.
Other tool manufacturers are joining Mapal on the c-Com platform, with projects with the Bass and Emuge-Franken companies in preparation. Since June 2017, tool data from Schnyder, the Swiss tool manufacturer, and Vergnano, an Italian company, have been maintained and shared on c-Com as part of a tool management project for a Tier 1 manufacturer. Other tool manufacturers will be on the platform in time for the EMO 2017 exhibition next month.
An example of a sector-focused partnership, in aerospace, is that of c-COM and Lübbering, the market leader in the production of drill feed units used in the sector. This partnership takes in data exchange and data handling between the newly developed L.ADU electronic and c-Com. So, from the c-Com platform, a L.ADU electronic user can directly and automatically call up tool-relevant data such as cutting data and NC programs for the drill used and thus prevent manual errors. In turn, tool lives and measurement data are transferred to the c-Com platform during processing and provide users and tool manufacturers detailed evaluation features. In addition, the complete planning of the tools and drill feed units can be processed via c-Com. Explains Thomas Langhorst (image, right), electrical engineering design manager at Lübbering: “The c-Com platform also offers us important benefits for servicing a L.ADU drilling machine. The complete communication of all relevant processes, data and facts and the resulting significant increase in efficiency that c-Com offers convinced us immediately.”
Another developing collaboration is that between Siemens and c-COM, involving the former’s MindSphere IoT cloud solution and taking in the exchange of machine data and tool data.
The development of c-Com is continuing. Four web-based modules will be available at platform launch: Tool Dashboard, Dynamic Order Optimizer, Reconditioning Management and Machine Run-Off. In parallel with this, different native iOS applications will be presented, such as Tool Manager, Tool Trial or Data Care that will allow for the mobile handling of data and documents in real time.
