RSS
Operational Improvements
December 11, 2024
The show must go on. And though we're extremely disappointed to not spend the week in Germany taking in the latest and greatest manufacturing technology, your computer will be your tour guide from April 12-16 to learn about automation, motion and drives, digital ecosystems, engineered parts and the future of digital manufacturing. Happy Hannover Week 2021. Stop by Power Transmission Engineering during the week to find out what our editors have learned during the show. Let the industrial transformation begin!
SEW EURODRIVE Presents Automation from a Single Source
Mobile Systems
Customer requirements sometimes change every hour or every minute. Almost no two orders are the same. But how can you still produce efficiently under such conditions? Let SEW EURODRIVE take attendees on a digital tour of its plants to see how they are best equipped for the future with modular production.
Meeting Plant Requirements
Same-day delivery or just-in-sequence are also benchmarks for your logistics? Then you need tank installation and storage systems that meet these requirements efficiently. SEW experts await you directly at their plants to report on how you can improve your stacker cranes and your warehouse, for example, by reducing mast vibrations or using energy intelligently.
Smart Production
Simplify the complex, shorten engineering and startup - that is the approach to machine automation at SEW-EURODRIVE. Experience product individualization using the example of a multipick machine. SEW will show attendees live how convenient it is to enter batch size 1 production with the company's integrated automation solutions.
HANNOVER MESSE | SEW-EURODRIVE (sew-eurodrive.de)
Beckhoff Automation Offers Interactive Automation Day
Hannover Messe attendees are invited to an Interactive Automation Day, the presentation program to accompany the Hannover Messe Digital Edition on April 12, 2021. Discover the latest Beckhoff highlights and innovations in vivid technology presentations, informed specialist lectures or with the first-class round table.
Experienced experts from all product areas present new products, developments, and application examples in extremely vivid and varied technology presentations. With interesting expert talks and a roundtable where the company will focus on current topics of industrial automation. During the Interactive Automation Day, all participants are able to directly join in with the dialog following the technology presentations and expert talks. Beckhoff speakers will answer questions live in Q&A sessions.
Topics include the XTS and XPlanar intelligent transport systems, I/O innovations, new developments in Industrial PCs and Embedded PCs, new features in TwinCAT3, energy management and more. Sign up at the link below:
Hannover Messe Digital Edition | Beckhoff Worldwide
Schaeffler Condition Monitoring and Robotics
IoT condition monitoring and lightweight robotics are set to transform industrial production over the coming years. Schaeffler is presenting innovative services and solutions for these two growth areas that will show you what tomorrow’s industrial production looks like today.
Condition Monitoring
Comprising three different types of condition monitoring system (CMS), Schaeffler’s portfolio spans the full range of automated monitoring solutions for industrial drives, individual machines and complete production facilities. New: These CMS systems are integrated into a single IoT visualization solution, giving the user total transparency regarding the condition of the production facility, all the way down to the component level.
Motion Systems
To be used in a greater range of applications, robotic systems need greater load capacity, longer articulated arms and better positioning accuracy. Schaeffler offers components and subsystems for this: more powerful motors, transmissions with greater torsional rigidity, and bearings with enhanced tilting rigidity. How can a 7-axis cobot be integrated into a production line? How can you overlay a virtual robot, complete with range extender, onto a production setup using a smartphone?
Find answers to these questions and more at the Schaeffler virtual booth will include interactive exhibits, a virtual factory, informative live technical presentations, a chatroom and much more. Everything you need to know about lightweight robotics and condition monitoring in the age of Industry 4.0.
Schaeffler VEP - Hannover Messe Digital (schaeffler-fairs.de)
Bosch Rexroth Linear Drives and On-Board Electronics
Bosch Rexroth’s development work has taken the hydraulic linear drive to a whole new level. The evolutionary CytroForce concept manages to squeeze previously bulky structures into a smart compact axis for power, movement and positioning tasks. The out-of-the-box solution consisting of flow-optimized standard modules sets new benchmarks in terms of power density, energy efficiency and quiet operations. It is supplied as a plug-and-produce system, meaning that even machine manufacturers who do not possess expertise in hydraulics can benefit from the optimized overall costs involved.
On account of their enhanced performance credentials, CytroForce axes, which are robustly designed to meet IP65 protection class criteria, are redefining potential fields of application. Depending on the configuration in question, the CytroForce-M, which was the first to be launched, covers forces of up to 1,200 kN, distances of up to 1.0 m and speeds of up to 0.8 m/s. The positioning accuracy is 10 µm and the repetition accuracy is 5 µm.
In order to enable highly productive and economic presses, machine tools and industry-specific applications to be achieved, the CytroForce has been designed to ensure efficiency, availability and usability at every junction of its life cycle: suitable product documentation is available up to the 2D or 3D CAD model. The axes are already pre-configured in the factory and - after mechanical installation - only need to be electrically connected.
The maintenance concept is also incredibly simple: with the help of a service kit, even non-specialist service technicians can take fluid samples for laboratory analyses. Even the refilling process, which needs to be carried out from time to time, does not require any specific expertise. The service kits are available for all Bosch Rexroth servo-hydraulic axes (SHAs), including CytroForce.
Condition monitoring and/or predictive analytics can also be conducted by combining the system with Rexroth’s ODiN service, helping to further increase the machine’s availability.
The modular CytroForce is based on the tried-and-tested variable-speed energy-on-demand drive Sytronix. In the case of CytroForce, a manifold and a differential or tandem cylinder are connected to this energy-efficient unit, consisting of servodrive and hydraulic fixed or variable displacement pump. All hydraulic components and interfaces have been flow-optimized with the latest cutting-edge processes. This reduces noise emissions and increases performance whilst minimizing dimensions.
Together with the tank, safety valves and sensors, the CytroForce modules form a highly compact and efficient servo-hydraulic axis with a closed fluid circuit and an energy-on-demand and standardized drive and control concept.
“Our evolutionary solution, available from a single source, is pushing the boundaries in terms of potential applications for hydraulic linear axes“, says Stefan Thienen, Product Manager CytroForce at Bosch Rexroth. “The cross-industry advantages provide machine and system manufacturers from practically all sectors with new and exciting prospects and the potential to implement improvements with regard to presses, machine tools and many other applications.”
Additionally, with the newly developed generation of digital on-board electronics for hydraulics, Rexroth allows economical scaling between analog components and those with a fieldbus/Ethernet connection. It takes advantage of the economic benefits of digitalization with no additional cabling. The new generation provides the open interfaces Bluetooth and IO-Link. In conjunction with a suitable app, commissioning engineers, operators and service technicians can access components and change parameters using their smartphone – directly and independently of the machine control system.
The first components to feature the new digital on-board electronics are the new proportional pressure regulating valves. In terms of hardware, they offer improvements thanks to volume flow-independent pressure regulation and a linear command value-pressure characteristic curve with four pressure levels. The valves have an integrated pressure sensor as well as a connection for external pressure sensors.
During initial commissioning, the components identify themselves via their digital name plate and, after a few moments, the technicians can start the parametrization process via their smartphones. An LED lights up blue during the connection and shows the commissioning engineer which proportional pressure reduction valve they are currently connected to.
Commissioning engineers can select from Rexroth’s predefined parameter sets or define them themselves. They can then save them and transfer them to identical valves. The app’s new patented slider makes optimization even easier. When the slider is moved between “Moderate” and “Aggressive”, the app’s software automatically adjusts all corresponding parameters to the selected dynamics.
For end users, the new digital on-board electronics significantly increases flexibility for process changes. If for example a tool which is twice as heavy is used on a press, a different valve would often have to be used on previous machines. With the new generation, it is sufficient to bring up the app in order to adjust the parameters accordingly. As a result, the end user can save the money needed for a conversion and the resulting machine downtime is avoided.
In addition, end users can use condition monitoring with no additional outlay. Via the app, they call up operating data such as the temperature or operating hours using the Diagnostics button. This helps to prevent nasty surprises. Via IO-Link, users can automatically set up this status monitoring in the machine control system too. Condition monitoring extends the operating life of components and increases availability.
HANNOVER MESSE Exhibitor 2021: Bosch Rexroth
Festo Examines Digitalization and Energy Efficiency
The megatrends of digitalization, individualization, climate protection and lifelong learning are the most important drivers of industrial change and likewise also of huge importance for Festo. The members of our management board will provide a summary of our key messages for you in advance of the trade fair:
"As a family-owned company, we think more in terms of generations than fiscal quarters. For this reason climate-neutral production and the conservation of our environment are matters that are close to our hearts. We will support you on the path to CO2-neutral production with higher energy efficiency, which can be attained by means of smart products, services and integral consulting for example," said Oliver Jung, chairman of the Festo SE & Co. KG management board.
Highlights include:
BionicSoftHand
Whether to grasp, hold, turn, touch, type, or press – we use our hands for a wide variety of tasks in our everyday lives without thinking twice about it. And yet the human hand is one of nature’s most miraculous tools. So what could be more natural than equipping robots in collaborative workspaces with a gripper inspired by this natural model? Robots that can then learn to solve a wide variety of gripping and turning tasks through the use of artificial intelligence? The reinforcement learning paradigm, a system of learning based on rewards, is used with the BionicSoftHand. This means that instead of defining a specific action that the robot must imitate, the hand is merely given an goal. It then attempts to achieve this through trial and error. Based on the feedback it receives – both positive and negative – it gradually optimizes its actions until it finally completes the task successfully.
Simple Electric Automation Solution
The move towards electric automation technology is not without its challenges. In addition to extensive knowledge of electrical systems and software, you also need a comparatively large budget – so it is no wonder that the benefits of electric automation have so far been limited to complex motion requirements. This is now changing: our Simplified Motion Series provides you with an automation solution that bridges the gap between easy-to-install pneumatics and smart electric automation. Simply make your production more efficient with plug and work.
Pneumatics is still the tool of choice for simple movement and positioning tasks. In an increasingly digitized world, however, electrical automation and a continuous flow of information from the workpiece to the controller to the cloud are becoming indispensable. This enables you to reduce commissioning times, ensure that production is cost-effective, and manage shorter product life cycles. As a result, the higher up-front costs of electric automation solutions are offset by savings during operation. And commissioning is now also quick and easy. How is this possible? With our Simplified Motion Series.
Digital Pneumatics
The digitalization we are experiencing as part of Industry 4.0 will profoundly alter the world of production. With the Festo Motion Terminal, Festo is launching the world's first standardized platform that will develop into a "cyber-physical system" thanks to its intelligent fusion of mechanics, electronics and software. This system is characterized by an extremely high level of adaptability and flexibility.
It will enable you to build intelligent machines now for the world of tomorrow, and ensure your systems are truly ready for Industry 4.0, even in terms of pneumatics.
https://www.festo.com/us/en/e/about-festo/trade-shows-events/hannover-messe-digital-edition-2021-id_651158/
Learn more about the digital trade show here:
HANNOVER MESSE
SEW EURODRIVE Presents Automation from a Single Source
Mobile Systems
Customer requirements sometimes change every hour or every minute. Almost no two orders are the same. But how can you still produce efficiently under such conditions? Let SEW EURODRIVE take attendees on a digital tour of its plants to see how they are best equipped for the future with modular production.
Meeting Plant Requirements
Same-day delivery or just-in-sequence are also benchmarks for your logistics? Then you need tank installation and storage systems that meet these requirements efficiently. SEW experts await you directly at their plants to report on how you can improve your stacker cranes and your warehouse, for example, by reducing mast vibrations or using energy intelligently.
Smart Production
Simplify the complex, shorten engineering and startup - that is the approach to machine automation at SEW-EURODRIVE. Experience product individualization using the example of a multipick machine. SEW will show attendees live how convenient it is to enter batch size 1 production with the company's integrated automation solutions.
HANNOVER MESSE | SEW-EURODRIVE (sew-eurodrive.de)
Beckhoff Automation Offers Interactive Automation Day
Hannover Messe attendees are invited to an Interactive Automation Day, the presentation program to accompany the Hannover Messe Digital Edition on April 12, 2021. Discover the latest Beckhoff highlights and innovations in vivid technology presentations, informed specialist lectures or with the first-class round table.
Experienced experts from all product areas present new products, developments, and application examples in extremely vivid and varied technology presentations. With interesting expert talks and a roundtable where the company will focus on current topics of industrial automation. During the Interactive Automation Day, all participants are able to directly join in with the dialog following the technology presentations and expert talks. Beckhoff speakers will answer questions live in Q&A sessions.
Topics include the XTS and XPlanar intelligent transport systems, I/O innovations, new developments in Industrial PCs and Embedded PCs, new features in TwinCAT3, energy management and more. Sign up at the link below:
Hannover Messe Digital Edition | Beckhoff Worldwide
Schaeffler Condition Monitoring and Robotics
IoT condition monitoring and lightweight robotics are set to transform industrial production over the coming years. Schaeffler is presenting innovative services and solutions for these two growth areas that will show you what tomorrow’s industrial production looks like today.
Condition Monitoring
Comprising three different types of condition monitoring system (CMS), Schaeffler’s portfolio spans the full range of automated monitoring solutions for industrial drives, individual machines and complete production facilities. New: These CMS systems are integrated into a single IoT visualization solution, giving the user total transparency regarding the condition of the production facility, all the way down to the component level.
Motion Systems
To be used in a greater range of applications, robotic systems need greater load capacity, longer articulated arms and better positioning accuracy. Schaeffler offers components and subsystems for this: more powerful motors, transmissions with greater torsional rigidity, and bearings with enhanced tilting rigidity. How can a 7-axis cobot be integrated into a production line? How can you overlay a virtual robot, complete with range extender, onto a production setup using a smartphone?
Find answers to these questions and more at the Schaeffler virtual booth will include interactive exhibits, a virtual factory, informative live technical presentations, a chatroom and much more. Everything you need to know about lightweight robotics and condition monitoring in the age of Industry 4.0.
Schaeffler VEP - Hannover Messe Digital (schaeffler-fairs.de)
Bosch Rexroth Linear Drives and On-Board Electronics
Bosch Rexroth’s development work has taken the hydraulic linear drive to a whole new level. The evolutionary CytroForce concept manages to squeeze previously bulky structures into a smart compact axis for power, movement and positioning tasks. The out-of-the-box solution consisting of flow-optimized standard modules sets new benchmarks in terms of power density, energy efficiency and quiet operations. It is supplied as a plug-and-produce system, meaning that even machine manufacturers who do not possess expertise in hydraulics can benefit from the optimized overall costs involved.
On account of their enhanced performance credentials, CytroForce axes, which are robustly designed to meet IP65 protection class criteria, are redefining potential fields of application. Depending on the configuration in question, the CytroForce-M, which was the first to be launched, covers forces of up to 1,200 kN, distances of up to 1.0 m and speeds of up to 0.8 m/s. The positioning accuracy is 10 µm and the repetition accuracy is 5 µm.
In order to enable highly productive and economic presses, machine tools and industry-specific applications to be achieved, the CytroForce has been designed to ensure efficiency, availability and usability at every junction of its life cycle: suitable product documentation is available up to the 2D or 3D CAD model. The axes are already pre-configured in the factory and - after mechanical installation - only need to be electrically connected.
The maintenance concept is also incredibly simple: with the help of a service kit, even non-specialist service technicians can take fluid samples for laboratory analyses. Even the refilling process, which needs to be carried out from time to time, does not require any specific expertise. The service kits are available for all Bosch Rexroth servo-hydraulic axes (SHAs), including CytroForce.
Condition monitoring and/or predictive analytics can also be conducted by combining the system with Rexroth’s ODiN service, helping to further increase the machine’s availability.
The modular CytroForce is based on the tried-and-tested variable-speed energy-on-demand drive Sytronix. In the case of CytroForce, a manifold and a differential or tandem cylinder are connected to this energy-efficient unit, consisting of servodrive and hydraulic fixed or variable displacement pump. All hydraulic components and interfaces have been flow-optimized with the latest cutting-edge processes. This reduces noise emissions and increases performance whilst minimizing dimensions.
Together with the tank, safety valves and sensors, the CytroForce modules form a highly compact and efficient servo-hydraulic axis with a closed fluid circuit and an energy-on-demand and standardized drive and control concept.
“Our evolutionary solution, available from a single source, is pushing the boundaries in terms of potential applications for hydraulic linear axes“, says Stefan Thienen, Product Manager CytroForce at Bosch Rexroth. “The cross-industry advantages provide machine and system manufacturers from practically all sectors with new and exciting prospects and the potential to implement improvements with regard to presses, machine tools and many other applications.”
Additionally, with the newly developed generation of digital on-board electronics for hydraulics, Rexroth allows economical scaling between analog components and those with a fieldbus/Ethernet connection. It takes advantage of the economic benefits of digitalization with no additional cabling. The new generation provides the open interfaces Bluetooth and IO-Link. In conjunction with a suitable app, commissioning engineers, operators and service technicians can access components and change parameters using their smartphone – directly and independently of the machine control system.
The first components to feature the new digital on-board electronics are the new proportional pressure regulating valves. In terms of hardware, they offer improvements thanks to volume flow-independent pressure regulation and a linear command value-pressure characteristic curve with four pressure levels. The valves have an integrated pressure sensor as well as a connection for external pressure sensors.
During initial commissioning, the components identify themselves via their digital name plate and, after a few moments, the technicians can start the parametrization process via their smartphones. An LED lights up blue during the connection and shows the commissioning engineer which proportional pressure reduction valve they are currently connected to.
Commissioning engineers can select from Rexroth’s predefined parameter sets or define them themselves. They can then save them and transfer them to identical valves. The app’s new patented slider makes optimization even easier. When the slider is moved between “Moderate” and “Aggressive”, the app’s software automatically adjusts all corresponding parameters to the selected dynamics.
For end users, the new digital on-board electronics significantly increases flexibility for process changes. If for example a tool which is twice as heavy is used on a press, a different valve would often have to be used on previous machines. With the new generation, it is sufficient to bring up the app in order to adjust the parameters accordingly. As a result, the end user can save the money needed for a conversion and the resulting machine downtime is avoided.
In addition, end users can use condition monitoring with no additional outlay. Via the app, they call up operating data such as the temperature or operating hours using the Diagnostics button. This helps to prevent nasty surprises. Via IO-Link, users can automatically set up this status monitoring in the machine control system too. Condition monitoring extends the operating life of components and increases availability.
HANNOVER MESSE Exhibitor 2021: Bosch Rexroth
Festo Examines Digitalization and Energy Efficiency
The megatrends of digitalization, individualization, climate protection and lifelong learning are the most important drivers of industrial change and likewise also of huge importance for Festo. The members of our management board will provide a summary of our key messages for you in advance of the trade fair:
"As a family-owned company, we think more in terms of generations than fiscal quarters. For this reason climate-neutral production and the conservation of our environment are matters that are close to our hearts. We will support you on the path to CO2-neutral production with higher energy efficiency, which can be attained by means of smart products, services and integral consulting for example," said Oliver Jung, chairman of the Festo SE & Co. KG management board.
Highlights include:
BionicSoftHand
Whether to grasp, hold, turn, touch, type, or press – we use our hands for a wide variety of tasks in our everyday lives without thinking twice about it. And yet the human hand is one of nature’s most miraculous tools. So what could be more natural than equipping robots in collaborative workspaces with a gripper inspired by this natural model? Robots that can then learn to solve a wide variety of gripping and turning tasks through the use of artificial intelligence? The reinforcement learning paradigm, a system of learning based on rewards, is used with the BionicSoftHand. This means that instead of defining a specific action that the robot must imitate, the hand is merely given an goal. It then attempts to achieve this through trial and error. Based on the feedback it receives – both positive and negative – it gradually optimizes its actions until it finally completes the task successfully.
Simple Electric Automation Solution
The move towards electric automation technology is not without its challenges. In addition to extensive knowledge of electrical systems and software, you also need a comparatively large budget – so it is no wonder that the benefits of electric automation have so far been limited to complex motion requirements. This is now changing: our Simplified Motion Series provides you with an automation solution that bridges the gap between easy-to-install pneumatics and smart electric automation. Simply make your production more efficient with plug and work.
Pneumatics is still the tool of choice for simple movement and positioning tasks. In an increasingly digitized world, however, electrical automation and a continuous flow of information from the workpiece to the controller to the cloud are becoming indispensable. This enables you to reduce commissioning times, ensure that production is cost-effective, and manage shorter product life cycles. As a result, the higher up-front costs of electric automation solutions are offset by savings during operation. And commissioning is now also quick and easy. How is this possible? With our Simplified Motion Series.
Digital Pneumatics
The digitalization we are experiencing as part of Industry 4.0 will profoundly alter the world of production. With the Festo Motion Terminal, Festo is launching the world's first standardized platform that will develop into a "cyber-physical system" thanks to its intelligent fusion of mechanics, electronics and software. This system is characterized by an extremely high level of adaptability and flexibility.
It will enable you to build intelligent machines now for the world of tomorrow, and ensure your systems are truly ready for Industry 4.0, even in terms of pneumatics.
https://www.festo.com/us/en/e/about-festo/trade-shows-events/hannover-messe-digital-edition-2021-id_651158/
Learn more about the digital trade show here:
HANNOVER MESSE
