Packaging
ABB to showcase Remote Service packages for robots at Interpack 2008
Thursday 01. May 2008 - Visitors to ABBs stand at Interpack 2008 (stand A35) will be able to learn how they could increase uptime of their production with ABBs new remote service concept.
A demonstration on the stand will show visitors how ABBs remote service technology can be used to help them proactively manage their robot maintenance.
Aimed at eliminating the impact of unplanned failures, the technology forms the heart of ABBs range of three service packages. The packages – Response; Maintenance and Warranty – provide customers with a choice of services to meet their exact business needs. Offering differing levels of cover, each package is aimed at helping users to lower the cost of their automated production lines through increased uptime, faster mean-time-to-repair (MTTR) and quicker error recovery.
“Shorter mean-time-to-repair offers a clear benefit to many of our customers,” says Dominique Blanc, Product Manager for Service Technology at ABB Robotics. “These companies are heavily dependent on automation to meet the just-in-time nature of their businesses, and unplanned stoppages can have dramatic consequences.”
The Remote Service technology logs a robots key performance data and relays it to an ABB service center via GPRS, where it is then stored and used to spot potential problems. The ABB on-call service engineer can immediately access a detailed data and error log and quickly identify the exact fault. From that moment, ABB can offer support without being physically at a customers side.
The benefits that this technology can bring are highlighted by the example of an ABB customer specializing in the manufacture of consumer products. For this user, ABBs remote service technology has helped reduce disruption in the production line and increase the output of the factory.
Shortly after setting up the Remote Service solution at a customer – Tetley – in the UK, ABB noted a high number of service alerts being logged. After analysis the root cause of the disturbance was identified and ABB approached the customer to offer a solution. The company confirmed that due to the nature of its production line, the robots were often stopped and re-started for changes in production. This had been affecting the robots since the first day they were installed at the plant.
Since the corrective action has been introduced the company has reported no further issues or disruptions on the production line. Using Remote Service, it has been possible to drastically reduce disturbances and increase the uptime of the production. The operators are also more aware of the solutions available when a problem arises and the best action to take to improve the robots lifetime expectancy.