Web App in Industrial Manufacturing
This application is a web-based performance dashboard to control, monitor, and analyse data of a pharmaceutical manufacturing machine.
The application intended to comply with the CFR-21 standards for FDA approvals for the export of certain medicines.
From an industrial perspective, the ability to closely monitor production and automating response to changing production demands improves efficiency and decreases downtime.
With the rise of Industry 4.0, more and more machines will exist physically as well as on the cloud.
Background
Machine Interface
An HMI is an interface between the machine and the operator. In essence, it’s an operator’s dashboard. This is the primary tool operators and line supervisors use to coordinate and control industrial and manufacturing processes and machines. HMIs translate complex process variables into usable and actionable information. Currently, an advanced HMI (in essence) is a touchscreen display connected to an industrial computer that interacts with field devices and the network.
Displaying near real-time operational information is the domain of the HMI. Visual process graphics give meaning and context to the motor and valve status, tank levels, and other process parameters. HMIs give operational insight into the process and enable control and optimization by regulating production and process targets.
The purpose of it is to display easily-understandable, real-time operational information. Visual process graphics give meaning and context to the motor and valve status, tank levels, pressure, vibration, and other process parameters. HMIs bring you into the process, so you can control and optimize it by regulating production and process targets. This also helps managers and supervisors improve the process by providing historical and trending data on machine efficiency or product quality.
Benefits of Web-based Approach
Given the advancements in web technologies in recent years, a reliable, performant and scalable machine application can be built solely using the web tech stack. Companies such as Exor and Pheonix Contact have made significant advances in this area and proven it on field.
Web-based approach extends the machine to be operated from anywhere and from any device and has quite a few benifits. This application was developed using NodeJS and python.
- Micro-services Architecture (as opposed to the dominant monolithic architecture)
- Customisability
- Machine APIs can be integrated with existing ERP software.
- On demand production reports, fault reports and machine performance reports.
- Ability to instantly notify relevant stakeholders in an event of failure or an emergency with realtime machine reports to reduce machine downtime
- Ability to upgrade features with effectively zero downtime, over the air.
- Ambiguous to hardware (Less resource hungry) [personally tested on $120 & $2000 hardware]
The Dashboard
Above video is of an operator running the machine in maintenance mode on a web app
Operator Features
- Full-fledged Machine Configuration and Mechanical Calibration Modes
- Easy to understand and actionable Machine Parameter Monitoring
- Digital Input & Output monitoring
- Machine Alarms Alerts
- One click machine recipe (configuration) loading and report generation
Maintenance Features
- Override Selected Safety features in Maintenance Mode
- Direct access to field devices using touch controls for fast fault diagnosis
- Logs of all operations done by maintenance technicians
Supervisor Level Features
- Report Generation (CSV and PDF) Faults, Audit Trail and Critical Parameters
- Historic Data Analysis for Quality Checks (QC) and Machine Performance and Health Checks
- Logs of all changes and actions taken by the operator and maintenance
Admin Level Features:
- User and Access Management Console
- Machine Configuration Management Console
Conclusion
Having a web-based backbone in manufacturing 4.0, enables a strong and seamless integration of production and post-production activities. Cloud-based applications are an ideal life support system for a manufacturing facility that requires a large number of interfaces to streamline supply chains, pull performance graphs, leverage bottlenecks, and drive improvements throughout the workflow.
