Automation system increases Vectra productivity

Vauxhall is using the GE Fanuc operator control and visualisation software Cimplicity Plant Edition at its fully modernised plant in Ellesmere Port.

Vauxhall is using the GE Fanuc operator control and visualisation software Cimplicity Plant Edition at its fully modernised plant in Ellesmere Port.

The entire concept for car body construction and the individual solutions integrated into it have proved very acceptable due to their openness and intelligent concept.

Since 1962 General Motors has produced at its Ellesmere Port plant a variety of models with the brand names Vauxhall and Opel for the European market.

The complete body construction area has been modernised in a record time of only nine months, ie from renewal of the production building through to the resumption of production.

Thus a plant, which originally produced just one model, has been turned into a flexible production plant in which the new Vectra is currently being built and in which the new Astra will also be built in the future.

The British build the Vectra in 136 possible variations.

A total of approximately 40 new cars leave the plant per hour.

Production of the new Vectra has been in operation since February 2002.

The car bodies are assembled with the aid of 600 Fanuc Robotics robots over a total length of 3.5km comprising 120 assembly stations.

12,000 welding points are necessary for this.

On account of the modernised production plant it has been possible to reduce the cost per car body by approximately 30%.

The software Cimplicity Plant Edition from GE Fanuc has made a contribution towards reducing costs.

This automation software is used among other things for maintenance purposes, production optimisation and visualisation.

It receives its data via Ethernet and MMS, a special General Motors communication standard, from 97 third-party control units distributed throughout the plant.

Communication at the I/O level is performed by Profibus DP.

GE Fanuc's Cimplicity software has already been in use for years on the painting line adjacent to the car body construction area, and in the assembly area for visualisation and control of the production process, and for process management.

The latest version of the software was very acceptable due to its flexibility and the ease of development of intelligent automation solutions, eg the integration of web technology and wireless information transfer.

Two computers equipped with Cimplicity software, so-called data collectors, record at present approximately 55,000 data points in real time.

The Scada concept has been designed so that in the future the application can be expanded without difficulty to 90,000 data points.

The collected data is passed on via Ethernet TCP/IP to various servers.

These form the basis for the implementation of various tasks and individual solutions.

These are as follows.

The Cimplicity Enterprise Server has 10 connected terminals (real client-server architecture) for visualisation of the production processes in real time by means of Cimplicity Runtime Viewer.

The Cimplicity Web/Media Server handles realisation of the production processes via the Intranet on any web-capable PC by means of a web browser (Internet Explorer).

It also handles alarm routing onto the existing telephone system.

Maintenance staff therefore receive an alarm by telephone in the event of critical process statuses.

The Cimplicity Quality Andon Server handles processing of the data and information for visualisation of the eight single-page and five double-page LED displays installed at present in the production building.

All LED displays are based on the Cimplicity Runtime Viewer, alarms being acoustically underlaid with sounds by means of Cimplicity Alarm Management.

The Cimplicity Material Andon Server passes on wireless information (wireless Ethernet) to forklift trucks and trolleys.

This information is displayed on a Windows CE monitor screen with touch-screen functionality by means of Cimplicity CE Viewer Software.

The Cimplicity SQL-Database Server handles data archiving and processing.

This server forms the basis for the management reporting system.

A great advantage of Cimplicity Plant Edition is the openness of the software.

The integration of third-party products, and hence the expansion of the overall concept by further individual solutions, is straightforward.

This is exactly what engineers expect.

Cimplicity gives the flexibility to be able to integrate into the overall system additional individual solutions at a later point in time.

Many other software products are closed systems, so with these products companies would also be putting themselves in a situation of dependency.

Configuration and commissioning of the system was quite easy on account of the software structure and Cimplicity's diverse tools.

In future, Vauxhall will be able to expand the system themselves with other functionalities without any great support from GE Fanuc.

The system is configured so that visualisation of the production sequence is performed on three levels.

On level one the observer has an overall view of the entire car body construction plant, on level two an overview of an individual area and on level three the visualisation of a machine with corresponding status reports.

The automation system includes error and alarm management.

The errors and alarms messages are based on a stepladder diagnostic system in real time.

Specially defined alarms are passed on directly by telephone to decision takers on the basis of their importance.

This ensures immediate action and troubleshooting.

All alarm messages are acquired in the SQL database and can be referred to accordingly for analyses.

For example, there are analyses and reports about the most frequent errors, stoppage times, machine utilisation and availability.

These analyses and reports help the plant management to optimise processes and production, ie to manufacture more cost-efficiently.

On site in the individual production areas there are 13 Cimplicity viewers, installed on large LED displays, which provide information about the current manufacturing quantities, the trend, faults, quality problems and material bottlenecks.

The logistics, ie the replenishment of materials for the individual assembly stations, is a big challenge for an automation system.

At Vauxhall, Cimplicity has been used to develop an efficient solution that optimises material replenishment.

The forklift trucks and trolleys are equipped with Cimplicity Windows CE terminals, including touch-screen functionality.

Before the drivers start working, they log into the system on screen.

The system then informs the driver what material will be fetched from which location and to which assembly station it should be brought.

The driver first of all confirms this job, then the material pickup and subsequently the delivery.

This information and the location of the individual drivers are passed on by radio to the Cimplicity Material Andon Server.

This server manages the data of the material in stock at the individual assembly stations and, if necessary, passes on the corresponding information in the form of jobs to a free driver when material is missing.

The system independently selects the nearest driver.

This ensures a smooth production process without any bottlenecks.

Currently 10 persons, in the areas of maintenance and production management, have been equipped with Cimplicity Runtime Viewer.

The Cimplicity Enterprise Server makes available all the required information in real time.

On account of the true client-server architecture it is very easy, and at a fairly low-cost, for Vauxhall to expand the system by further viewers in the future.

In addition to the ten viewers in use there was also a requirement to make the production data available to a variable number of managerial personnel.

GE Fanuc therefore integrated a Cimplicity Web server.

It is now possible to visualise the production data in conditional real time on any PC with a web browser and an Intranet connection.

In addition to the visualisation all database reports are available via web access.

Management of the users is performed centrally by means of passwords.

It is not necessary to install additional runtime software.

This low-cost variant allows a large number of persons access to the system, allows them to take sound decisions in good time and to thereby increase manufacturing productivity.

Back to top