ITAMCO Receives Award for Smart Manufacturing Project

ITAMCO (Plymouth, IN), a manufacturer of precision-machined components and specializing in gears, is part of a team that received an Applied Research and Development award from the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII; Chicago, IL). The award-winning project is titled “Standards-Based Platform for Enterprise Communication Enabling Optimal Production and Self-Awareness,” or SPEC-OPS.

The goal of the project is to make smart manufacturing a reality by connecting and configuring diverse machine tools, PLCs, sensors, and devices on the shop floor. Currently, on-site process data and machine controller data are disconnected from higher-level decision-making systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. SPEC-OPS will validate, integrate, and enhance five major standards (ISA-95, MTConnect®, UPnP, STEP ISO 13399, ISO 13374) to provide a standard-based communication platform that enables integrated predictive process control, dynamic scheduling, and process analytics with significantly reduced implementation cost.

The cost savings will be realized through asset discovery and location services with the goal of realizing a plug-and-play, near-zero configuration using real-time sensor and process data. Location services will allow devices to find each other and discover capabilities, to compute dynamic travel times as well as the proximity of mobile material handlers and manufacturing assets in near real-time. This will be the first communication platform that allows tight integration between machine tools, manufacturing execution systems (MES), ERP systems, dynamic planning and scheduling, and process analytics.

The other partners in the project are Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated (PARC; Palo Alto, CA), MTConnect Institute (McLean, VA) and System Insights (Berkley, CA). ITAMCO is the implementation site for the project. They were the ideal choice as the implementation site because the MTConnect standard already connects many of their machine tools. “We are only 12 to 15 months away from a totally integrated shop floor. A job will be entered into our ERP system and then every piece of the job, from allocating materials, to manufacturing, to shipping and invoicing, will be automatically routed through the entire facility. Machines will be chosen based on the type of work and availability. And SPEC-OPS is dynamic: if a machine goes down, the job will be automatically rerouted,” explained Joel Neidig, an engineer and lead IT developer at ITAMCO.

The platform will provide savings in planning, scheduling, execution, and maintenance time and translate to increased competitiveness and agility for U.S. manufacturers. “SPEC-OPS will make us even more valuable to our customers in mining, oil and gas, aerospace and defense,” added Neidig. “Our goal is to be the most reliable and quality-driven resource in their supply chain. We are very appreciative of the award funding that makes this possible and we’re enjoying the collaboration with PARC, MTConnect Institute and System Insights.”

“We are excited to continue to advance applied research and development within our core technology focus areas,” added Dr. Dean Bartles, the executive director of DMDII. “With each project call, we bring additional researchers, global industry leaders, and small companies into our consortium and move closer to making technologies related to smart manufacturing and ‘brilliant factory’ applicable to manufacturers across the country.”

Since 1955, ITAMCO has provided open gearing and precision machining services to many heavy-duty industries including mining, off-highway vehicles, marine, and aviation. In addition, their technology team has released over 65 apps for mobile devices; designed and markets iBlue, the first industrial Bluetooth transmitter; and developed an award-winning application Google Glass application.

www.itamco.com,   www.dmdii.uilabs.org