Nexcom Huaya Smart Factory and Enterprise War Room
Project Name
Nexcom Huaya Smart Factory and Enterprise War Room
Project Begin
2018/9
Peoject End
2019/6，still in progress
Client Contact
Nexcom Huaya Factory Manager Shirley Yeh
NexAIoT Contact
Eric Lo Send an Email
Background
NEXCOM is a world-renowned industrial computer manufacturer. Its market covers industrial computers, wireless computers , digital surveillance, on-board computers, digital multimedia, and other related industries. Following the trend of Industry 4.0, NEXCOM introduced the enterprise digital transformation blueprint in 2017. The plan was to integrate the OT/IT information of the corporate headquarters, Sanmin Manufacturing Plant, and the new Huaya Plant to construct an industry 4.0 IoT framework and an enterprise war room. In 2018, the second Huaya Plant was established in Taiwan with an 8,000 square meters space, two SMT production lines, DIP lines, and system assembly lines, providing highly automated OEM production of Netcom and Net Security equipment.
At the end of 2018, NexAIoT wan the implementation contract of the Industry 4.0 system for the Huaya factory. The scope of the project covered the entire environmental monitoring system, production-line information integration system, predictive maintenance system, power monitoring system, corporate situation room, IoT information security system, and real-time productivity analysis system. NexAIoT introduced the iAT2000 cloud intelligence system as a system solution for the entire factory's Industry 4.0, integrated the OT information with ERP and MES to complete the implementation of a cross-field collaborative enterprise war room. This project was successfully completed in June 2019. NEXCOM listed the new Huaya Plant as an industry 4.0 smart manufacturing demo site and opened it up to the public. The Huaya demo plant is highly affirmed by customers around the world and has established an excellent reputation in Industry 4.0. for NexAIoT.
Challenges
Like most of the electronics manufacturing plants, the NEXCOM Huaya Plant already had highly automated production processes. But to collect data from different devices and sensors, it is necessary to match up with the collection equipment and procedures of the machine network.
In the Huaya demo plant, we have experienced the following challenges:
1. The planning of the Internet of Things for the whole plant and the enterprise war room requires OT and IT integration talents and experience.2. There were many types of field devices, and some of them did not have a communication protocol and needed to be fully digitized.
3. The equipment in the entire plant had fixed positions, and a secure and stable industrial wireless communication network was required.
4.For the crucial non-stop operating equipment in the plant, the life analysis of the parts needed to be forecasted in advance.
5. The need to provide cross-domain communication security and connection.
6. The information of SCADA and MES/ERP must be integrated into the enterprise war room, and new technologies for web management must be introduced.
7. Energy management, streamlining of manpower & material resources, and immediate settlement of work order costs are required.
8. The RFID product production process in the whole plant needs to be tracked.
To overcome the challenges mentioned above, we employed NexAIoT's product advantages and integration capabilities to build a comprehensive enterprise war room.
Solution System Architecture Description
There are three main ways to collect information at the Huaya Plant:
1.Environmental sensors: Traditional environmental sensors are based on serial communication. We used the Device Gateway to convert streaming communication to network communication, and made the output wirelessly, saving wiring and maintenance costs.
2.Machine with communication: The Machine Gateway was utilized to obtain internal data through the communication method of the machine.
3.Machines without communication capabilities: NexAIoT's Non-protocol Gateway could capture the machine's screens, and the installation was fast and easy. The Non-protocol Gateway could detect machine data in real-time through OCR technology without interrupting the machine settings.
The collected data will be converted and analyzed through the IIoT Gateway. The information will then be sent to SCADA for display and stored in the database for advanced analysis and statistics. The integrated manufacturing execution system (MES) data will be used for the study and planning of production capacity and materials.
The Enterprise War Room also has an ERP system,a supervisory management system that provides the view of the business outlook and production cost analysis in real-time; the information security module that performs equipment-end safety monitoring;The motor's predictive maintenance module that detects abnormalities before the motor is damaged and the reminder to schedule maintenance.
These elements enable the enterprise war room to meet the needs of operators, production managers, information security units, and equipment maintenance units at the same time.
Results and Benefits
After NexAIoT’s 9-month planning and implementation, NEXCOM’s automated Huaya Plant displayed the immediate environment and equipment status and read manufacturing information in real-time. Plus, a newly equipped Enterprise War Room that collected instantaneous production data. The Huaya Plant brought in the following benefits:
1.Save energy, labor, and money
Monitoring the operating status of the equipment avoids maintenance delays when problems occur and can increase the line balance rate by 3%-6%.
With the real-time data recording and integrated analysis of smart meters, the factory can allocate power consumption and production capacity, saving 30% of monthly power costs.
Through the frequency spectrum analysis of the motor calculation, an early warning is provided through the system when the motor has abnormal interference. As a result of early inspections, maintenance, and replacement of abnormal parts, there will be two preventive inspections scheduled within a year to avoid system downtime. Plus, the use of the analysis and optimization of the management decision system––iPDM, the production line has become more efficient.
Compared with the Sanmin Plant, another NEXCOM’s automated factory, the added Enterprise War Room enabled the Huaya Plant to increase with 25% of its production capacity, with 70% of the labor force of the Sanmin Plant.
2.Improve customer satisfaction
The monitoring of environmental factors makes the production variables more stable, helps to trace the overall analysis of the root causes of production problems, and provides a complete production history. The remote monitoring and automatic monitoring capabilities of the Enterprise War Room minimize errors, failures, and material shortages, and make the products stable and reliable. After being assessed by the largest ODM customer, the Huaya Plant only had 3 points deducted out of a total of 122 points, with a high score of 97.5. Huaya was rewarded with substantial orders that were superior to competitors’ order margins.
3.Excellent demonstration room
After the completion of the NEXCOM Huaya Plant, visitors to the Enterprise War Room kept coming, and the industry became the benchmark for digital manufacturing with Industry 4.0. The Enterprise War Room created by NexAIoT has established not only a model for industry 4.0 total solution for the industry but also an advertising platform for NEXCOM’s various industrial intelligent products.