Mazak - Harvesting job result data

[Darren McCarley]

At work I'm a software developer, partial roboticist, network "guy", etc. (Aka, Full Stack Engineer.) Because my management knows I am also working through an ad hoc apprenticeship on manual mills, lathes, etc, I've been asked to determine the data I can harvest "post job" data from Mazak machines and then provide anaylsis on the data to assist in all manner of quality control, efficiency improvements, etc. To be completely honest, I have no idea where to start. Recognizing I have some of the best in the business here on PM, I felt foolish if I didn't at least try to as for suggestions, ideas, links and/or leads. Any direction would be greatly appreciated. For example: Is this data even available?


Mazak machines I'm aware of Integrex e-V, HCN-6800, and Variax.

 

[Philabuster]

What controls are on the machines? I know that data does exist and is available on the SmoothX control and newer machine controls. Mazak even has software to talk to the machines and monitor machine performance in real time.

 

[Philabuster]

If you go to the diagnostic screen and then select running control soft key, this is the data that is recorded. It shows the date, time, program number and records the machine status as the day goes on. These parts I am running are only a 4 minute cycle time so you see a lot of color changes between machine cutting chips and sitting idle.

Mazak Integrex i-400S with SmoothX control. First picture is weekly view of what the machine has been doing. Remainder of the pics are single day operation.

 

[Darren McCarley]

Thank you both! I'll dig in a bit and find out the controller and any other automation that I can disclose.
Any other questions I should ask or details?
Truly appreciate your time and feedback.

 

[CNC Hacker]

Darren

You can export the data from those pages as a .CSV file, but it's not super useful to be honest. Sounds like what you really want is MTConnect. That would let you setup a real time dashboard for example to see the status of all your machines.

 

[boosted]

Agreed it sounds like OP is after MTConnect. You can also just take advantage of the MTConnect protocol with your own piece of software.

There are full third party solutions that include hardware as well if MTConnect is not enough data.

For us... MTConnect was too much of a time suck for very little useful data. We just DPRNT cycle time data to the local directory, then push that onto the server.

 

[Darren McCarley]

Having spent the better part of the weekend learning as much as i can about Mazak integration, I would tend to agree with the MTConnect approach. I did find out we already use MTC to obtain machine health and utilization metrics. However, my customer wants more.

Hard to complain about steady work.
- Grand Dad

 

[CarbideBob]

At work I'm a software developer, partial roboticist, network "guy", etc. (Aka, Full Stack Engineer.)

What is a full stack engineer? I see this but do not understand what it means.

 

[Darren McCarley]

Contemporary "HR-ey" way of saying "Jack of all trades master of none" relative to IT. Originally it meant one could build the entire "web site technology stack". From back end database, web server, code the website, etc. Anymore, the expectation is that a Full Stack Engineer is either knowledgeable, or can quickly obtain the knowledge, of all things IT. Database, network, routers, switches, web pages/applications, cloud (e.g. AWS), etc, etc, Basically, a nerd.