Juxtum’s Mission: Provide a Corporate Connectivity Solution for a Security and Aerospace Titan
Customer Success
Standardizing and Delivering Some of the Most Sophisticated Machine Data in the World
CHALLENGE: Finding the right partner
As a global designer and manufacturer of advanced technologies in the aircraft, military, and spacecraft industries, this client plays a pivotal role on the MTConnect Standards Committee and knows the value of standardizing data across its global enterprise to reap the benefits of smart manufacturing.
Employing some of the world’s most brilliant data scientists, the client has the talent in place for capitalizing on IIoT manufacturing solutions. It just needs the data from its machines delivered in the most optimized and secure way. The client wants its data scientists’ time spent analyzing data to improve its manufacturing processes, not cleaning data. The client also must maintain the highest levels of security and confidentiality around its data.
Juxtum leadership also plays an active role on the MTConnect Standards Committee, so the client is aware of Juxtum’s skills in data collection and standardization. In addition, Juxtum Connect is platform-agnostic, meaning that the client can implement Juxtum’s adapters as a data collection solution without utilizing a third-party visualization system to consume the data.
The flexibility of Juxtum’s approach proves to be the winning combination for earning this client’s business. The client’s internal IT and analytics teams take the lead and have complete control over the organization’s highly classified security and intellectual property needs. Juxtum’s engineers focus on normalizing data at the machine level and building custom adapters for data collection from some of the company’s more challenging assets.
SOLUTION: Standardization and customization
The digital factory project started in the aerospace division of the company. Juxtum engineers performed on-site assessments in collaboration with the company’s leadership, engineers, operations, and IT teams to learn about all the equipment the client wanted to connect and assess the data it can affect.
Once the client finalized the plan, connecting the machines was fast and easy, resulting in virtually no downtime for the organization because of Juxtum’s patent on Automatic Deployment of Manufacturing Adaptors. Juxtum’s adaptors obtain a deeper level of data in minutes because the software automatically generates an XML schema for the equipment it’s reading. Juxtum also has an adaptor built explicitly for the Siemens SINUMERIK 840D, a premium CNC machine used throughout this organization.
Of course, not every industrial asset is as easy as others to collect data from. Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are a unique challenge for data collection efforts. Manufacturers worldwide use PLCs to automate key processes, but PLCs are not standardized regarding how data is put into the machines. As a result, each data input item results in a unique “tag”.
Juxtum develops custom adaptor solutions for data collection efforts from the client’s PLCs and autoclaves. The custom adaptors not only read the tags (this client had one PLC with 3,000 tags) but also delivers the data semantics that go along with the tags. Providing the data in this format allows the client to pare it down for analysis and optimization quickly.
RESULTS: Nothing succeeds like success
Rolling out a new, corporate-wide initiative is a challenge in any industry or organization; early wins are essential. One success leads to another, which has undoubtedly been the case for this client.
The first project occured at an aerospace division in the Southwest: Approximately 50 machines began delivering data for the company. Pleased with the results, the project grew to two more aerospace facilities, and another 50 machines started communicating.
The military and space divisions of the company heard of the success in the aerospace division and started moving forward with their own digital factory projects. In one military facility, 39 machines were connected in the first deployment, with hundreds more planned in the coming year.
The client’s vision to connect its more than 10,000 machines across its global manufacturing operations is well on its way to becoming a reality. And the company maintains complete control over the security and stealth of its proprietary operations.
