Interview with YCM
Metal manufacturing industries have faced countless challenges in recent years. China is no exception to the challenge. Common problems that face China’s metal fabrication industry include a lack of standardized communication interfaces, low level intelligence in existing equipment, and low level of informatization in existing systems.
With more than six decades of experience in machine tool manufacturing, YCM (Yeong Chin Machinery Industries Co. Ltd.®) have deep trade experience in China’s metal manufacturing industry. However, with the advent of Industry 4.0 and new trends in IoT, even leaders such as YCM face huge challenges in making their manufacturing smarter using digitized information and visualized data intelligence. Challenges such as rapid changes in the marketplace, emerging market competition, limited resources and sustainability, slow growth, labor shortages and transitioning business integration are common problems in China’s metal manufacturing industry.
So how can China’s metal manufacturers turn today’s problems into tomorrow’s success? The key is to focus on process management that yields decreased time-to-market while delivering high-quality and competitive product pricing. To meet this challenge YCM looked to Advantech and its CNC Machine Management Solution, a Machine-to-Intelligence Solution Ready Package that implements CNC machine management (M2I/CNC SRP), to meet their demands and simplify manufacturing by rapidly upgrading legacy systems for successful transition into the Industry 4.0 era.
Advantech also has a wealth of industry experience in industrial automation, including metals processing. With more than 35 years in providing manufacturing customers across the globe with IoT hardware and software solutions such as the WISE-PaaS IoT Edge Intelligence Platform and AIoT SRP, Advantech delivers custom IoT solutions in an increasingly competitive global market.
By employing Advantech’s M2I/CNC SRP, YCM has been able to integrate IoT cloud features directly with its CNC controllers to facilitate machine data acquisition through the WISE-PaaS industrial cloud platform.
In subscribing to the M2I/CNC cloud service on Advantech’s WISE-PaaS Marketplace, YCM was able to easily examine overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), performance, and event history for individual CNC devices by viewing web-based dashboards. Cloud-based solutions allowed for the collection of data for instant machine-to-cloud management without having to install a server room infrastructure. The OEE dashboard, in combination with historical performance data and real-time trends, provided a comprehensive operational overview. Through additional optimization, critical and non-critical issues alike are easily identified— minimizing system downtime and providing insight into proactive maintenance forecasting.
By utilizing Advantech’s M2I/CNC SRP, YCM has been able to realize reductions in operational costs. In a recent metal processing order, YCM saw operational cost reductions through the rapid deployment of Advantech’s SRP solution. By eliminating unnecessary costs and loss-of-business opportunities, YCM was able to rapidly deploy smarter manufacturing processes, and deliver customer products to market faster than otherwise possible.
As a new service business dedicated to further meet China’s growing CNC and metals production and fabrication market demands, YCM has also teamed with Advantech to co-create Dot Zero®. By offering a broad range of smart manufacturing solutions, Dot Zero has been able to deliver significant savings across industries. With solutions such as CNC Machine Management, Equipment Management System (EMS), Work In Process (WIP), and Statistical Process Control (SPC), Dot Zero can assist in combining smart management with smart machines to realize the ultimate in smart automation – your Smart Factory Dream.