Infinity Technology Europe Ltd is a UK based software developer providing system solutions for component manufacturing.

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Infinity’s software connects real-time production instructions from major automotive manufacturers to Tier 1 suppliers, integrating their time-critical and sequence-critical production processes. At Infinity, we call this a Sequence Production System.

 

Our software supports the “Just in Time” manufacturing where parts are only ordered and delivered when needed. Organising production by “Just in Time” principles allows manufacturing companies to maximise their cash flow as they have no need to hold stock in excess of which is required at any point at any time. Sequence Production System automates data transfer processes which allow significant efficiency gains in terms of speed of production process and minimising the stock levels at the production plant.

 

Situation: 

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Infinity were engaged by Futaba Industrial in a project called Jarvis Traceability, to develop a new bespoke

application for their car fuel tank weld and helium test production process.

 

The project required to provide three key features:

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• Collect and record test data for Futaba’s customer JLR

• Validate tank serial number data prior to allowing the fuel tanks to be welded

• Validate tank serial number and weld status prior to allowing the tanks to be helium tested.

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Developing Solution: 

 

Futaba engaged ICS to provide the automated fuel tank welding robots and VES for the Helium Testing. Infinity have been providing systems for Futaba for 12 years and were invited to participate with this project.

We recognised that to deliver this solution for FIUK it meant we would need to be operating at a lower level than our previous applications, in essence it meant our software would be interfacing directly with PLCs (production line control machines), collecting and recording data whilst also updating registers on the PLCs at certain points during production, in effect our system controls the production process.

 

ICS Solution

 

We developed a protocol between ICS and Infinity to perform the required process.  Via the research we carried out we knew the requirement and had identified what needed to be done.

 

The welding machine/robot provided by ICS are driven/controlled by a Mitsubishi PLC – we had to develop a bridge between our software and the PLC. In order to talk to the Mitsubishi we developed a bridge between a library written in another language (Node/JavaScript) and our python code. We used the ‘mcprotocol’ node library.

 

The development of the ‘bridge’ took place on the customer site and working alongside technical staff from ICS, the development process was lengthy and complex.  We had to develop from scratch, connecting to the PLC, reading and writing data to the PLC and also take into account the limited memory capacity of the PLC. The cycle time of the welding machine/robot is around 30 minutes. This meant testing had to be carefully planned prior to execution. The extract below shows the data registers used to exchange data.

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