SW already has offered its customers access to machine data via a portal since 2004. To be able to present this information more clearly and concisely and in a more modern format, the company has developed its own Cloud solution, based on the Predix IIoT platform from GE, thereby making it even easier for customers to meet quality and production goals.
By 2020, all existing functionalities will be transferred from the previous Cloud solution to the new system.
With the existing platform, SW has already been evaluating, with the consent of its customers, machine data for more than 15 years. About 2,000 machines are currently connected; 700 million data points and 25 million machine events have been collected.
The new SW Cloud Platform is the result of advanced development and offers continuous performance monitoring, which ensures greater transparency over the entire manufacturing process. "A profile is saved for each of the machines connected worldwide that makes all the machine information and process data available via a dashboard. A map of the world and various production lines provide an initial overview of machine locations and states," explains Jochen Heinz, director of industrial data services at SW.
In addition, the design of the user interface, including all graphics and statistics, are arranged clearly and concisely, which makes inconsistencies and problems in operating sequences easy for the user to identify. Care was also taken to ensure intuitive operating guidance, which makes for easy error analysis. SW attaches special importance to data security: "The issue is given high priority at SW. Since a large amount of data in a system is saved in the SW Cloud Platform, we have paid special attention to this aspect," explains Heinz.
The Cloud solution is part of "life," the complete uniform service concept, as part of the "life data" module: It expands the data services portfolio, which includes, in addition to online services, the components digitisation, consulting, factory simulation and data analytics. These solution modules will be further expanded in the future to meet all the challenges of Industry 4.0 proactively.
