Central to its Industry 4.0 presentation at the exhibition, Burgess Hill-based Heidenhain (GB) Ltd (www.heidenhaingb.com) will demonstrate its Connected Machining system of production, in which all work steps are networked digitally via its TNC milling control (Hall 18 Stand 545).

By linking the CNC system (via Ethernet) into a manufacturer’s network, design, programming and planning staff, as well as machinists on the shopfloor, can access all order- and job-related information.

Heidenhain’s premise is that a workpiece is produced on a machine tool, so all information should be consolidated there, with data on the status and quality of a workpiece flowing back into the production IT system.

The machinist, who is responsible for the quality of components and for staying on schedule, needs access to this data.

A scenario will be presented at MACH based on a Heidenhain TNC 640 CNC system. Standard features allow access to manufacturing process data on a company network through viewers for PDFs and graphics files, as well as for CAD files in STEP or IGES format.

Operation of web-based documentation software or ERP systems via the installed browser is possible, as is access to a user’s e-mail inbox.

Using the control’s Remote Desktop Manager software, the CAM system can be accessed directly, while the CAM software interrogates the central tool database during programming.

The resulting cycle is then simulated to ensure its reliability, before the verified NC code is transferred to the TNC 640 through a drive that can be accessed by both the machine operator and programmer.

Using Batch Process Manager, the operator will schedule the execution of the production job on the machine.

NC programs and the position of the clamped workpiece on the pallet will be linked with respect to the order and sorted into a list according to priority (several production orders can be scheduled simultaneously).

The control supports this functionality by comparing the tools required to run the program with the cutters actually available in the machine, reporting any that are missing.

The operator can then, for example, output a list of new tools that need to be prepared to execute the job.

Information on the estimated machining time can be used for further order planning and, together with information from the tool management system, for ordering new tools.

Newly introduced StateMonitor software supports the operator, capturing data from connected machines, and presenting a real-time view of machine status and sending messages to computers throughout the company, as well as to mobile devices.

For instance, the software can send a message to the tool pre-setting station if the life of a tool is approaching a critical value.

Based on stored data, new tools can be pre-set, a unique code added to the holder for unambiguous identification and the data sent back into the network, where it can be accessed by the CAM system and virtual machining software.

Finally, automatic workpiece measurement on the machine delivers important data for quality assurance, which can be archived or evaluated.

The data is centrally available to other systems, meaning that all links in the process chain can be optimised, from the NC program to the tool pre-setting station.