RFID scanning, as developed for Holroyd’s Zenith 400 helical profile grinder, is now available with all Holroyd EX-series rotor-milling machines and Holroyd TG-series rotor and screw-grinding machines. Particularly valuable where machines are integrated into automated production cells, Holroyd’s RFID tagging process offers a fool-proof solution to quality control, ensuring that chuck, collet, cutter and tailstock - in fact virtually any component or tooling product that needs to be switched between manufacturing cycles - is changed to the correct item for any individual set-up.
In a world where information is king, Holroyd is also working with automation specialists to not only incorporate IO-Link communication technology into new-build machines, but offer it as an upgrade opportunity to deliver rapid, ‘single-cable’ data transfer and performance monitoring capability from older machine tools. IO-Link was selected for its ability to handle vast amounts of data, its recognised capability in providing powerful opportunities for industrial automation and its capacity to communicate at every level.
For Holroyd customers, the real benefit is the opportunity to learn from levels of rich, real-time, and historic production and performance data, in order to make comparisons that can benefit efficiency, accuracy and quality, and determine trends. For example: does a machine’s work-head temperature alter significantly during a particular process and, if so, what is the cause? Do production rates and cycle times vary by operator? Again, why? And does a variation in a machine’s coolant pressure or flow rate relate to expected tool life? These are just hypothetical questions, but with production and machine condition data available immediately to desktop, tablet or phone, Holroyd will provide customers with a wealth of information to help drive performance and advance the predictive diagnostic capabilities of PPM (planned preventive maintenance) service programmes.
Access to totally anonymised machine performance data, collected - with consent - from customers globally, could also assist Holroyd in further enhancing what it believes to be class-leading customer care and planned preventive maintenance (PPM) packages, including the scheduling of maintenance around production regimes.
