Nov 18, 2014
Background
This autumn Engineering finished rolling out a state-of-the-art DNC (Direct Numerical Control) system at the flagship manufacturing center of a major Oilfield Services company. As Teamcenter® users, they were accustomed to managing product design data in their PLM system. However, their Manufacturing data, including CAM files and NC Programs, had no centralized location.
The customer decided to manage their CAM data – including set up sheets, cutting simulation movies, and NC programs – in Teamcenter®, and implement Shop Floor Connect, the Siemens DNC solution, to transfer NC data directly from Teamcenter® to their CNC machines.
As an Oilfield Services provider, our client produces many of the tools used for oilfield commissioning and extraction, such as drilling, evaluation, and safety equipment. With a wide variety of component families to produce, CNC machining is an essential piece of their Manufacturing capabilities.
Motivation
Always looking to strengthen their production processes, our Oilfield Services customer came to Engineering having identified areas for improvement in the CNC machining aspect of their Manufacturing group. Before the DNC system, NC programs were located only on the machines on which they ran. Each machine operator maintained personal knowledge of what each program was, but there was often no standardized naming conventions to these programs. Finally, there was usually no backup of NC programs; the risk was that if a program was lost, so was the knowledge of how to machine that part. CAM engineers often found themselves losing a lot of time and effort trying to manage existing programs, as well as transferring new programs and program revisions to the machines.
DNC System Rollout
Engineering acted as the systems integrator, delivering all phases of the project. In collaboration with the client’s CAM engineering and PLM teams, we helped define the new standards for managing NC Programs with revision control and release statuses. These new standards were designed to meet the requirements of all project stakeholders, including Corporate, PLM, and Manufacturing groups. Engineering then configured the DNC system according to the developed solution specifications. After validating the solution on pre-production servers, Engineering connected each CNC machine on the shop floor to the new DNC system, now deployed on their production environment. At each stage of the process, Engineering involved the client’s personnel who would be responsible for supporting the system after go-live. The client’s support personnel accompanied Engineering consultants in connecting CNC machines to the system, preparing them to take ownership of their new DNC network.
Results
After go-live of the system, CAM engineers started populating Teamcenter® with newly created programs and new revisions of existing programs. Machinists could then instantly access the programs they needed without time-consuming manual transfer of tape files. The Manufacturing group also started the process of uploading NC programs residing on the CNC machines into Teamcenter®. Each program can now be cataloged and revision controlled, in a highly managed and backed-up environment. The result is a more streamlined and standardized process for CAM data management. Instead of “tribal knowledge,” NC programs are fully organized and revision controlled. Machinists use Shop Floor Connect to access the latest program revision for instant transfer to the CNC machine. With effective DNC, machining has become a stronger capability for our Oilfield Services client.
