Industry: Automotive Parts Manufacturing

Services and Materials Provided:

• Project management
• Electrical design and application
• Network assessment and implementation
• PAC/PLC programming and hardware
• RSViewME operator interface
• Network switches and access points
• CAD drawings
• Startup services

Situation Analysis

The customer had rotating equipment which made the use of traditional wired networking equipment a challenge.  Since there was key production data produced on this rotating equipment, there was a definite need to get this data from the machine into their production management and quality control systems.  The customer also required security constraints to limit access to the wireless network and to keep the various wireless areas from conflicting with one another.

Technical Details

Applied Technologies designed, programmed, installed and commissioned a complete network system to allow wireless access to the key data points in the system.  This system consisted of wireless communications from within the rotating equipment to a fixed point outside that equipment.  In order to completely isolate one piece of equipment from the next, a unique wireless area was set up for each of these machines.  This allowed for total isolation of one from another.  With wireless in place, Applied Technologies was able to gather the key data and present it to the appropriate production and quality systems as planned.  As a key additional benefit of this system, it also allowed for easy access to key preventative maintenance data for the maintenance staff.  This reduced their need to stop the equipment to make PM checks and paved the way for more uptime and less interruption to these key processes.