BHEL to plug in CNC wireless monitor

PUNE, INDIA: City-based Digitech Engineers will launch its custom-built in-house machine monitoring system Smart Job at BHEL Haridwar this month.

This would be the maiden deployment of this software that can be later implemented across 13 more units of BHEL across India.

The system, which is an upgrade of Digitech’s earlier R&D i.e., a wireless solution for CNC data Communication, will help monitor and control the entire process on shop floor besides setting machine efficiency metrics, threshold levels, for operator control and display.

“Even a half-hour downtime in a vast manufacturing shop floor can be serious. Hence an automated monitoring system comes as an apt solution. This monitoring would not be the erstwhile close-circuit camera based monitoring but would be based on tapping the signals from the machine and then sending it to remote supervision. One can easily see through visual graphics, the switch on-off time logs, operator cutting and setting times and much more. All this was, so far, being done by the shop floor supervisor himself at the end of the shift and that too on a paper,” explained Digitech’s managing partner Deepak Bodhani.

The installation would cost BHEL around Rs 40 lakh. Though made as per the requirements of BHEL, the system has standards that make it amenable for deployment in other industries too.

Next in works is BHEL Bhopal and Bodhani is hopeful of taking it across 13 BHEL units in India. There’s a market opportunity of 300 to 400 units per year, he informed.

Earlier, the company developed a wireless CNC communication that was based on wireless hardware from Sena Technologies, wherein, a CNC machine having RS-232 port can be interfaced with a remote PC, using this solution.

Digitech’s portfolio includes CNC Code Loader, DNC Software, Networking Hardware developed and manufactured at Pune. Digitech has so far converted 100 of its over 750 customers to wireless CNC and sees further demand ahead. The cost is around Rs 25,000 per machine and next in line are 10-15 heavy machines going from wired to wireless at Telcon’s Jamshedpur heavy earth equipment plant.

Other few companies in the wireless CNC domain include names like Predator Software and CNC Computer Integration. The wireless CNC communications technology that helps communicate error free with CNC equipment via new wireless technologies, is believed to have been initiated in 2001 with enthusiasts like Tim Carson with DNCWorks, John Carpenter with CNC Computer Integration (WireFreeCNC) and others. Wireless CNC is being used by manufacturers for replacement of DNC system, machine tool monitoring, job tracking, part tracking, tool management and personnel status.