Connectivity as an opportunity for transparent production
21.11.2018
Image caption: HeiTPM completes the digital information and interaction chain from the corporate management level to the machine. The illustration shows the production cockpit developed using SAP Fiori as a sample application. (Source: Heitec)
With HeiTPM, Heitec offers a solution that retrieves any data from controllers and sensors on the shop floor, supplements it with structural and descriptive information on self-describing objects, and prepares and stores it individually for different process participants for analysis and visualization.
Using the latest SAP technologies, HeiTPM integrates all of a company’s product-related data and processes into the value chain mapped in SAP ERP, from production control to controlling. Optimization potentials in all areas of logistics and IT infrastructure can be quickly realized, thanks to the resulting improvement in connectivity. Data quality and data security are also increased as a result of real-time data acquisition and verification by means of plausibility checks that are performed right on the shop floor. Because the current machining status is always directly visible in the ERP system, production managers can schedule subsequent processes and retooling time more precisely. This reduces machining time and effort, facilitates handling, and optimizes material flow and resource distribution.
Gateways are essential components of the HeiTPM architecture that take data gathered on a time-deterministic basis and buffer it in real time, preprocess it asynchronously, and forward it to downstream services on the shop floor. Heitec has developed numerous plug-ins to handle the various protocols on the shop floor. Communication via the manufacturer-independent OPC UA access procedure based on time-sensitive networking (TSN) is extremely future-proof and powerful – both horizontally on all control devices and vertically from the sensor to the ERP system. In addition to SAP ERP, the connection can also be established on other manufacturer-independent platforms like Acron or cloud solutions like MindSphere.
More benefits for customers can also be generated in conjunction with the HeiVM framework developed by Heitec for the planning, simulation, generation, programming, and commissioning of machines and plants using digital object-oriented twins of automation components. For example, it’s possible to optimize and plant or analyze the causes of errors by feeding back the information that HeiTPM recorded during real operation parallel to ongoing operation.
PR-HEITEC-SPS-IPC-Drives-2018-HeiTPM-en.zip