A real-time equipment interface for controlling production equipment

An environment in which high value-added information can be effectively utilized to increase manufacturing industry´s competitiveness in the market and its productivity is urgently required. Actually, many manufacturers have introduced and promoted production information systems such as MES (Manufacturing Execution System), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and so on. Nevertheless, employers are experiencing difficulties in grasping ever-changing information on the production process in real time or in reacting quickly and flexibly based on such information. That is because the situation regarding the operation of a factory is impossible to grasp in real time using only a production information system implemented under the condition that real time data on situations occurring in production site and equipments are neither collected nor informatized. In such an environment, there is an emerging need to control the production site and equipment, and new methods of controlling production equipment so as to improve industrial productivity are being proposed. In this paper, we propose some methods of collecting the required information on production equipments in real time using an equipment interface, which is the basic technology for effectively controlling production equipment.