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febbraio 12, 2021 - Siemens

Old and new – perfectly combined

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Modernizing of key facility for production of inner races with #siemens RFID technology

Offenbach am Main, #germany. #gkndriveline Offenbach, supplier of power transmission systems and solutions for the automotive industry, relies on RFID technology from #siemens to modernise its key facility for production of inner races. The new RFID solution for workpiece recognition could be implemented during ongoing operations, so that the 30-year-old plant contributes to productivity at the site.

The flexible, automated production – FAP facility for short – takes up almost an entire hall at #gkndriveline in Offenbach. Every second, the long broaches at the five broaching machines raise and lower, and parts are conveyed from the machining to the washer, the hardening equipment and the tempering furnace. Here, the company produces a majority of its inner races, which are the core component in constant-velocity joint assemblies in countless vehicles. All machines are linked together: Up to 12 workpieces are automatically transported on pallets from one station to the next and machined in accordance with the specification. In order for the workpieces to pass through every work step exactly as specified, each of the pallets is equipped with an RFID tag. On the tag, the information on the workpieces and the process are stored, which is updated as steps are gone through – so that it is always possible to comprehend which steps have already been completed and which ones are still pending. By means of readers, each pallet is identified, fed to the corresponding machining station, and transferred back to the conveyor systems after completion of the work step – completely without manual intervention. The complex processes have been controlled for more than 30 years by a Simatic S5, which is still reliable doing its duty today around the clock and is absolutely critical for the productivity here at this site.

Time-sensitive modernization of a key facility

Nevertheless, central components of the facility have to be replaced or modernized again and again – and since the entire production at the Offenbach location is affected by the downtime of this facility, availability is always paramount, explains Andreas Bartsch, #gkndriveline Site Service Maintenance. “For scheduled repairs to the facility, we always have only small time windows available. It is therefore important that a new component can be integrated as smoothly as possible.” This also applies to the modernisation of a total of 40 Moby I readers for reading out and writing tags on the pallets. Important was for the new RFID system to be compatible with the existing automation technology in particular with the existing S5 controller. With the new solution the current Simatic RF350 readers can easily be connected to the existing interface of the Simatic S5 via an adapter cable. The reader automatically detects the serial protocol and sets the Moby I protocol if it is connected to a Moby I-capable communication module. The Moby I emulation processes the telegrams of the Moby I protocol at its serial interface and communicates the information seamlessly using the matching RF300 transponders. As a result, #gkndriveline could continue to use the existing configuration, which considerably simplified the conversion. In addition, to avoid possible production downtimes, the new system was put into operation in only three days during the Christmas shutdown. Since their successful commissioning, the new Simatic RF systems have been working reliably.