Intelligent Manufacturing Robotics and Automation Interoperability Standards

Although manufacturers can draw on a multitude of software options to run the various parts of an automated factory line, their choices are limited because different types of software -- sometimes even different versions of the same software -- are often not compatible.  In 2006, for example, Airbus announced a loss of six billion dollars and two years due to a conflict between two versions of a design software package.  To prevent such problems, NIST works with both software and manufacturing companies to ensure interoperability across broad platforms.  Such compatibility not only enables manufacturers to choose the best software for the job without sacrificing reliability, but allows for easy system reconfiguration to respond quickly to ever-changing consumer desires. 

Rather than compete with low labor costs abroad, U.S. manufacturing industry seeks to build innovative, high-end designs found nowhere else, which can be brought to market inexpensively and quickly before they are mass-produced elsewhere.  For example, in the past, it has taken twice as long for U.S. car manufacturers to get a new car design to market than Toyota – that gap is closing and needs to be erased. To support such creativity and speed, the industry needs efficient, glitch-free manufacturing systems that can fulfill a wide range of purposes.  Building such flexible infrastructure requires the ability to make use of all appropriate technologies without being tied into a single vendor's products -- but current software is almost always incompatible across different vendors' platforms.  

This project works to achieve interoperability with existing software architectures already accepted by NIST’s industrial partners.  The intention is not to have the software rewritten or overhauled, but instead to create standards for compatibility that permit transmission of commands and information among the given programs.  Following extensive discussion with commercial partners, project researchers have focused their efforts on several software arenas, including communication between robotic machines, methods to record the history of real-time production and monitor its effectiveness, and coordination of computer-aided design software tools.  The type of software varies from one arena to another, but the ultimate goal is often the same -- to create formatting standards that allow easy movement of data from one type of program to the next. The group has a testbed on NIST's Gaithersburg campus where researchers can assess the interoperability of any software package on simulations of factory floor installations.  

Although individual software companies have an interest in pushing customers to buy only their own products, they understand that their customers need interoperability.  If a product doesn’t work well with a customer’s existing investments, the vendor stands to lose.  For this reason, they cooperate with NIST's plans to establish compatibility across companies in order to ensure that their needs are represented.  NIST in turn assumes the cost of software testing, which companies have little incentive to perform, as it would burden them with the financial responsibility for efforts that benefit all companies.  Industry partners are, however, willing to contribute supporting monies and time, a good indication that NIST is working on standards the industry deems necessary.

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• Wrote an OPC client to the Siemens 840D on our 5-axis DMG machine tool that demonstrated tool condition monitoring and visualized critical process conditions, including spindle power and torque, chip load, surface accuracy and tool breaking stress.
• Conducted cutting tests of STEP-NC toolpaths prepared by Airbus for the so-called “fish head” part we have used for several previous demonstrations. Cutting tests were conducted on the DMG 5-axis machine, for which a STEP-NC interface from STEP Tools Inc. was purchased.  The tests showed that while STEP-NC toolpath files can be exchanged, the toolpaths need to be adjusted on each machine to account for the specific dynamic performance.
• Together with Boeing and Okuma, NIST demonstrated CNC-ERP supply chain scrap reordering at Boeing's Renton 737 facility. The goal was to move from a “touch to no-touch” operation, automating the data entry formerly done by machinists when leading edge wing panels were scrapped. The demonstration showed almost complete automation, with only manual data entry of the reason for the scrapped part remaining.
• Prepared a survey document on CNC vendor compensation techniques, “CNC Interface Specification for Calibration and Measurement Models”. This document surveyed the various formats for on-machine calibration tables used by Siemens, MDSI and Hurco, and proposed a solution for standardizing the exchange of machine calibration between metrology instrumentation and machine tool controllers.
• OPC is moving away from its Microsoft-based foundation (COM and DCOM) toward a platform-independent communications model called OPC-Unified Architecture (UA). NIST followed the move to OPC-UA and prepared a report for General Motors on its applicability to vehicle assembly.