Numerous interfaces and connectors are required to connect heterogeneous machine parks to the Industrial IoT, as is the case at SCHUNK. The ADAMOS STORE offers pre-integrated apps for this purpose, such as Cybus Connectware. The Connectware software app provides fast connectivity and complex data processing of real-time production data.
The challenge: Obtaining data from a heterogeneous machine park
The SCHUNK GmbH & Co. KG is one of Germany’s typical hidden champions, a medium-sized company headquartered in Lauffen am Neckar. The competence leader offers the world’s largest range of gripping systems and clamping technology. Among other things, the company has been developing special applications in robotics for decades. One example is the anthropomorphic 5-finger gripping hand for human/robot collaboration, which can be integrated into commercially available industrial and lightweight robots.
The company has plants in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the USA. It prefers a high level of vertical integration and therefore uses many different technologies in the individual plants. Added to this is the strong growth in recent years, so that many generations of equipment, manufacturer models and control systems are to be found in the plants. The company wanted greater transparency for this machine park, so it launched networking through Industrial IoT. The goal: Gain a precise overview of all plants and record the machine status in the first step.
However, not all devices used by SCHUNK are network-capable and, moreover, the already digitized devices support different networking options. Even the setup of the connectivity therefore has a high basic complexity. For this reason, SCHUNK GmbH sought out an experienced implementation partner, the Industrial IoT expert Cybus GmbH from Hamburg.
The solution: An industrial app for the IIoT from the ADAMOS STORE
Cybus’ solution Connectware ideal for companies that want to network a heterogeneous machine park. As a technology-neutral layer it is vendor and supplier independent. The main task is the factory-wide data flow in all directions and seamless connectivity of any system. Using pre-installed drivers, every machine, plant, PLC or sensors can be integrated quickly and easily on the company side.
All machine data is collected by the edge solution via MQTT in real time and aggregated directly in the local factory network. The on-premises software then distributes the pre-processed data to other systems and applications – in the cloud or also in the local network. This creates a unified data architecture that integrates seamlessly with existing technologies and infrastructures.
Connectware has recently been added to the new ADAMOS STORE ,which offers apps for the Industrial IoT and the Smart Factory. In addition to networking solutions such as the Cybus Connectware-Appbut also machine status dashboards, maintenance software, analytics applications and other digital solutions for shop floor management, live video remote support or production planning.
The advantage of the appstore principle at ADAMOS: The individual cloud applications are pre-integrated with each other and can be used according to the modular system. For example, it is possible to connect Connectware directly to maintenance software offered in the Appstore such as WERKBLiQ or an OEE solution. In addition, Connectware offers integrations with various target systems, such as MES or ERP systems, clouds and databases like AWS, SAP, Siemens and many more.
The result: A pre-integrated hub for real-time data
The combination of ADAMOS’ marketplace and networking technology significantly accelerates the realization of Industrial IoT projects. If manufacturing companies opt for this toolset, they gain a pre-integrated IIoT architecture. In this way, Cybus Connectware can be linked to different applications for specific industries or task areas in the company without the need for further development for integrations. The advantage for companies: The complexity of IoT projects is significantly lower, development costs decrease, the flexibility to use software solutions increases and the time-to-market is optimized.
