“We know about a problem sometimes before our customer does,” says Mark Hessinger, executive director, worldwide customer service for Gerber. “We saw a customer struggling on the system and we gave operators a call and told them what to do.”

Gerber utilizes technology from Axeda Corp., in Foxboro, Mass., to collect and analyze data as well as deliver it remotely. Gerber considered developing the technology in-house. “They have mature products that get us quicker to the market,” says Hessinger.

The system indicates the health of the cutting machines and generates warnings if the machine slips from its prescribed data ranges. “The system log file will generate an error warning in real time.” The system also provides Gerber with a benchmark of optimal machine operation. The best-practice benchmark can be replicated from plant to plant. “We have a customer in China with 23 cutters and they wanted to get benchmarks on the cutters,” says Hessinger. “When they found we had a roadmap of best practices, they were quite excited.”

Related Feature - Predictive Maintenance Finally Gets Wide Adoption
To read the feature article relating to this story, go to www.automationworld.com/feature-6215.

Subscribe to Automation World's RSS Feeds for Feature Articles