By Dr. Jesper Mellenthin

(Virtual Showroom): towards digital transformation in the world of forging.

With a set of modular packages, forging plants enter the era of digitalization. They help the forging industry generate value from their data and continuously improve their plants’ productivity, quality, availability, and energy efficiency. All solutions can be combined and apply to existing plants from any supplier.

In both open-die forging and radial forging, processes and the degree of automation vary widely. While some producers focus on specialized single-item production, others have highly automated production with large lot sizes. Accordingly, the requirements for digitalization vary. For individual production, digitalization and the detection of trends is especially difficult due to low repetition of the same production conditions. There is often a complex combination of different process steps, each of them having an important impact on the quality of the product. Also, different routes might lead to comparable results as compensation in case of deviations are possible. A reliable tracking system that prevents mismatch and a good quality and energy certification system are essential.

When producing the same products more regularly with less manual intervention, machine data collection, automatic process analysis, and a continuous data-driven improvement process add the highest value. SMS group has developed specialized solutions that can be applied stepwise for these different needs, focusing on realizing the most benefits with the lowest investment. Gradually increasing the degree of digitalization by adding more solutions and interlinking them is the path to a fully digitalized plant.

Our Management Information Diagnostic Indication System

On top of the local automation system and the corresponding line control, the Management Information Diagnostic Indication System (MIDIS+) is the brain of the plant.

We developed it to fit the specific needs of the process, handling the production from raw material delivery and storage to packing and shipment of the final product. MIDIS+ takes over the orders from the ERP system and manages the short and medium-term planning. It provides specific recipes so that the set points for all production steps can be passed on to the local automation system automatically, depending on the final product. It also tracks the material through the entire process, and the corresponding measuring data is associated with the product for further evaluation. Specific reports and product passports are provided to ensure full transparency of the quality and energy consumption of the product. While planning and reporting occur in office floor applications, specific dialogues are also integrated into the shop floor local automation. This allows the management and tracking of tools, interruptions, and materials. It builds the basis for the continuous improvement process, which can be started in MIDIS+ and continued in, or combined with, SMS group’s other digital solutions.

ComForge® and ForgeBase® Forging Technology Suites

ComForge® and ForgeBase® Forging Technology Suites are technology solutions to optimize production by calculating the optimal process parameters (e.g. pass schedules and furnace temperature set points) depending on the individual process. While the general functionality is similar, ComForge® is dedicated to radial forging, and ForgeBase® specializes in open-die forging. The solutions can be integrated into the automation system and used during live production but also used as office floor applications for planning, optimization, and analysis purposes.

Intelligent data analytics with SMS-Metrics

The overall goal of digitalization is to harvest existing data and generate value from it. This is true for individual process steps but also for the entire line. While MIDIS+ focuses on product-specific analysis and builds the basis for meta­data like tool usage, interruption reasons, materials properties, or the final product quality, SMS-Metrics collects detailed time series data from the PLC, combines it (if available) with data from MIDIS+, and supervises the process in real time. The solution is scalable and easy to maintain – and it is preconfigured to the needs of the specific process to provide tangible benefits from day one.

SMS-Metrics provides predefined integrated rules and dashboarding functionalities to monitor parameters and results from process analysis. The focus is on automatically supervising the machine data and creating an alert in case of deviations from the normal behavior. This can be achieved by integrating product information into the evaluation.

SMS-Metrics addresses all areas for optimization:

— Production, with a total productivity overview of all forging presses as well as more detailed views for each press for management level

— Condition monitoring, with a focus on the needs of the maintenance team

— Energy management, with a focus on needs of the energy management and process improvement team

— The process, with a focus on the needs of the technology and process improvement team

The different views are based on SMS know-how and are constantly extended as part of the Software as a Service (SaaS) offer – also as a result of user feedback. An additional advantage is the effort‑less extensibility to using machine learning algorithms, as SMS-Metrics ensures that clean data is stored. Other tools, e.g. the AIXpert from SMS digital, can access the data directly and facilitates straightforward integration of artificial intelligence at a later time.

Intelligent alarm management system

The local automation system evaluates and checks process and machine data against specific limit values. If these are exceeded, corresponding alerts are generated and shown on the local automation HMI.

The intelligent alarm management system Smart Alarm facilitates working with this information regarding the health status of the plant. Here, the alarm messages from all automation systems are collected and permanently stored. Several additional features such as notifications via email or short message, solution management or alarm occurrence analysis are integrated in the system. Smart Alarm is a SaaS solution, which is continuously developed and new features are added. The software offers several benefits, including faster troubleshooting times, better know-how management, and lower maintenance costs due to improved maintenance planning.

Maintenance Advisor

The Maintenance Advisor is an easy and simple system to organize and track maintenance activities electronically. On most plants, maintenance is tracked via hand-written, individual, and often confusing notes and hence it is difficult to track and evaluate what actually happened. With our solution, maintenance activities can be planned manually or by triggers, e.g. based on time, runtime, counters, or load. The scheduled activities are visualized and their execution is tracked digitally for later analysis.

The benefits are longer usage of wear parts due to better and load-orientated planning, more reliable maintenance works due to clear schedules and reminders, as well as more efficient tracking directly at the machine with mobile devices through a web-based system.

Electronic document management

SMS group provides its documentation in an electronic format to make it easily accessible and to increase overall plant transparency from site to individual part. It facilitates smart and fast navigation through all equipment, with convenient part identification via equipment trees, hotspot diagrams, and versatile search functions. Search times are significantly reduced, and part mismatches are avoided. The same-parts search function shows users whether a part is used in different locations, which is helpful for spare part optimization, and in case a missing spare part needs to be replaced in a critical spot.

Your roadmap towards digitalization

The road towards digitalization is as individual as the processes and their producers. In general, there are two reasonable approaches. A general approach starts a continuous improvement based on data. In the so-called digital learning cycle, existing data is collected, possibly supplemented with additional sensors or a MIDIS+ system for tracking and planning the process digitally. The focus is on visualizing and analyzing the data with SMS-Metrics. Together with SMS group experts, KPIs are created and deviations from normal behavior are detected. These can be analyzed to learn where a process can be improved. Any potential found is exploited and baked in by creating new rules and alerts. Additional dashboards can be created to access more detail, and new sensors can be added, depending on the actual needs.

A more specific approach can be applied if an already known, specific optimization potential is to be exploited. That could range from increasing a machine’s uptime, energy efficiency, quality, or process efficiency. In a first step, SMS-­Metrics is installed to collect and store the current process data – again, depending on the existing infrastructure, supplemented by other sensors or systems. At this point, it is possible to establish a baseline of the current performance to measure the success of the optimization. Based on the data collected, SMS experts combine their machine know-how with the producer’s expertise to analyze the process and uncover improvement potential. As an option, machine learning methods can be employed to locate impact factors. In the final phase, the continuous improvement process is started, ensuring that any found potentials are continuously exploited and extended.