TRACK AND TRACE TESTBED

Fast Facts

Member Participants:

Bosch, Cisco, SAP SE

Market Segment:

Industrial Manufacturing; Power Tool Fleet Management

The Problem:

Factory systems can detect - within a meter - the location of a tool; Misuse of tools can result in serious accident or injury; The production of many industrial and consumer goods requires exacting work - down to the precise force used to tighten a screw.

Goal:

Manage smart, hand-held tools in manufacturing, maintenance, and industrial environments

Features:

Asset management and work management; integration with factory manufacturing systems

Commercial Benefits:

Enable "Tools as a Service" business model; Enhance productivity, production quality, and work safety

The Testbed

The Track and Trace testbed brings the Industrial Internet onto the factory floor. The goal is to manage handheld power tools in manufacturing and maintenance environments. This "management" involves efficiently tracking and tracing the usage of these tools to ensure their proper use, prevent their misuse and collect data on their usage and status.

Today's factories are highly sophisticated and require exacting work - down to the precise amount of force used to tighten a screw. The tools in Track and Trace will be able to determine its precise location and use and, therefore, will be able to determine the force and work needed to complete a task. In addition, if a tool recognizes that it is being misused, it will promptly power down to avoid accident or injury. Finally, over the two-year project, the testbed participants will look to fine-tune the localization of tools to 30 centimeters, and ideally down to five centimeters. Currently, the accuracy is approximately one meter - a gap large enough to allow mistakes. These features of Track and Trace will contribute to the safety and quality of the goods produced, as well as increase productivity in manufacturing.

Over the two-year project, four Industrial Internet Consortium members will be lending their expertise to the testbed. Bosch is supplying the necessary software; Cisco is taking care of the precision location identification feature; and National Instruments is interconnecting the power tools.

Interested in learning more about the Track and Trace testbed? Email us!

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Testbed In Action

Track and Trace and Aircraft Construction

In aircraft construction, there are precise regulations that specify the kind of screw and the amount of force that must be used to join specific parts. When it comes to passenger aircraft, there are thousands of such screws that must be tightened and precisely documented. Joints on the wings naturally require a different amount of force than those on an aircraft window.

The tools in Track and Trace will be able to identify their precise location on the shop floor. With the position of the aircraft also fixed, we can determine that a particular tool is located at the vertical stablizer. We can then send instructions that specify the force it should use to tighten screws there.