“Unexpected downtime costs manufacturers an estimated £4,400 a minute,” explains Steve Capon, technical manager at FANUC UK. “By using ZDT, production managers can monitor their robots and take corrective actions before a potential problem occurs.”
ZDT works by collecting data on a robot’s mechanical, process, maintenance and system health. This data is then analysed via a central server, which notifies a production manager of any issues and recommends corrective actions via their tablet or smartphone, regardless of their location.
In addition to faults, ZDT identifies areas in which a robot could be optimised, such as cycle time or energy consumption. Over time, the analytics provided by ZDT can help production managers to compile a detailed predictive maintenance strategy for their robots.
“Data is the key to Industry 4.0, but only if it is harnessed correctly,” says Capon. “Analytical tools like ZDT help production managers to make sense of the information that they’re given, by formulating it into a comprehensible report of performance trends, problematic areas and recommendations.”
Depending on requirements, ZDT can be used to monitor a variety of key performance indicators, including: reducers, torque, servo guns, grease levels and network load. ZDT is also scalable to any industrial robot configuration, whether that involves monitoring a single robot or collating the performance of every robot on the factory floor.
