Collecting plant floor data using agent embedded in controller

In the industrial and robotic fields, equipment manufacturers and system vendors have engaged in standardization activities in order to guarantee interconnection and interoperation and improve productivity and competitiveness. Recently, more system flexibility and cost efficiency than before have become necessary due to the intensity of market competition and diversity of customer needs. In plant-floor systems, the need for total cost ownership reduction has been growing. To meet this need, Japanese organizations use the concept of ldquoMierukardquo, i.e., visualization, to share and utilize information by making it visible in an easily understandable form. To achieve ldquoMierukardquo, we need to be able to utilize plant-floor level data by flexibly collecting and seamlessly handling the data from various devices. We describe our standardization activities in the industrial field, propose a plant-floor level data collection method using an agent embedded in a controller to flexibly collect data, and discuss an application of the standardized data model interface that we previously proposed, super distributed objects (SDO), to utilize collected data.