1.What is equipment standardization?

Standardizing equipment means, simply put, to make equipment with a similar structure. By doing so, the man-hours required for equipment design can be reduced. In addition, since multiple pieces of the same components are used, the components price can be negotiated, resulting in reduction of equipment purchase costs.

From an operational standpoint, the common maintenance parts reduces the parts inventory. If the equipment has the same structure, the hurdle for users to understand the equipment is lowered because they can immediately imagine how to use it, even if it is new.

This idea of equipment standardization has many benefits in the long run for production engineering jobs. I'll discuss the key points to consider, in order to determine how to proceed.

2.Standardization of equipment components

Let's start from looking at the components that make up the equipment.

Equipment consists of PLCs, touch panels, switches, valves, cylinders, actuators and sensors. Depending on the equipment, there may be cameras, dispensers, measuring instruments, hydraulic tanks, load cells, load monitors, and many more.

The items that need to be prioritized and standardized are PLCs, touch panels, and specialized accessories such as measuring instruments, cameras, and load monitors.

In Japan, there are PLCs from companies such as K, O, M, and Y. Allen-Bradley PLCs are widely distributed in North America and Siemens PLCs are widely used in Europe. Of course, Japanese equipment manufacturers generally use the above-mentioned Japanese PLCs.

This PLC is controller that controls the operation of equipment, and it is necessary to monitor the inside program many times for maintenance and equipment debugging even after the equipment is installed.

If you are an engineer, you need to learn simple operations. These days, it's huge task to completely master the whole operation of PLC because of its advanced function. At a minimum, I/O operation is required, but there are also data communication, motor control, RS232C communication control, Ethernet communication, CC link communication, comment language switching, and macro processing.

Since these controls and operability differ from company to company, if the PLCs are not standardized, it will be difficult to operate them on site.

Normally, PC is connected to PLC when setting, editing and controlling PLC program. Each company requires different communication software and cables, and the operation of the software is also different for each company.

If PLCs are not standardized, the new equipment will be different from the existing equipment, which may cause a risk to the production side when a problem occurs. Touch panel needs to be standardized for the same reason as PLC. Normally, touch panel of the same manufacturer as the PLC is adopted to be compatible with the PLC.

Next, let's talk about cameras. The visual inspection process, which used to be carried out by workers, has been mostly replaced by cameras. The reason is because they are easy to automate and have a history of judgment results, allowing for quantitative judgment, and the price of the cameras themselves has dropped.

The software for these vision system also varies from company to company. Whether it is simple evaluation item or complex item with processing, fine tuning is required when judgment error occurs due to material variation or misalignment of the camera.
As well as PLCs, this vision system has many functions such as simple edge detection, position correction, filter processing, calculation functions, external output, and pass/fail judgment functions.

Compared to PLCs, the number of cameras used in the entire production line may be small, but if these cameras are not standardized to some extent, it will increase the load on the engineers who will be looking after them later on site.

Finally, there are other accessories.
For example, in the case of press, load cells, load monitors and hydraulic units should be standardized. In the case of inspection equipment, standardize the measuring instruments. In the case of welding equipment, standardize the welding power supply.

These are some of the ideas for standardization when introducing a new production line. Particularly with PLCs and cameras, you need to consider carefully because buying the hardware comes with handling of software.

3.Common specification to existing lines

In addition to consumable parts, it is also necessary to prepare spare parts for common components (such as PLCs and panels), special parts, and items with long delivery times. This is because even a single component failure in one piece of equipment can stop the entire production line.

Simple machined products, valves and sensors are easily available, so you don't have that much of a problem, but there are some products that require delivery time of several weeks or months. You should keep at least one of these at hand as a spare.

The next step is to consider the relationship with the existing line. Every company, unless it is introducing its first production line in new plant, will produce a similar product. Depending on the time of installation of old line, we should start from learning the equipment configuration and specifications of the "old line" before considering the equipment specifications of new production line.

The risk of failure can be reduced by using structures and components that have already been in use of mass production. In terms of spare parts, you can also share the same spare parts with your old line if you use the same components. If any equipment fails in the early stages of new line, it can be recovered quickly using the spare parts you have for the existing line.

4.Common Product Design

It is desirable for production equipment to have a certain degree of flexibility. This depends on the customer's volume demand, the capacity of the equipment (production capacity), and the how much it can be automated.

The more you automate, the less flexibility you have. Too much flexibility makes automation difficult. My proposal is a structure that allows for the expansion or reduction of units by connecting stand-alone units with automated transfers.
In this way, as production volume increases or decreases, investment in equipment for expansion can be delayed or diverted to other purposes when it is no longer needed.

The above is a case of considering the equipment side alone. Next, we would like to describe the commonality in product design. At the equipment installation stage, the structure of the product is already fixed. In fact, this product design has a great impact on the equipment specifications.

For example, one product may be designed to be assembled using four M4 hexagon socket bolts. Another product was constructed to be assembled using three M3 flat-headed bolts with threadlock application.
In the latter case, the dispensing function is required. Since the screw sizes are different, it is not possible to produce these models on the same line, although this is an extreme example.


For example, consider the case of two models with similar product structures. If the models are different, it is essentially impossible to standardize everything. The product design department has also been improving and adding new features to the existing models, so it is not possible to have similar designs with exactly the same structure.

Even if it is impossible to use all of them, for example, if a product is designed so that even 20-30% of similar models can be supported by the same equipment, then partial sharing of equipment will be possible.

Normally a factory would never have just two production lines, so let's say there are five or ten lines. If you think about those production lines as a whole, it's possible to optimize the entire factory by sharing parts of the product.

In addition, by standardizing the product structure, the product design department can shorten the man-hours for drawing and eliminate the design validation process. The purchasing department and parts suppliers can also reduce the number of man-hours needed to start up a new product and create price benefits from the volume.
Of course, on the production equipment side as well, you can expect to reduce start-up man-hours, installation risks, and create operational benefits from the common equipment.


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