Utilising a LonWorks control network for factory communication to improve overall equipment effectiveness

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) enables factories to increase the output of their products and to minimise the number of rejects. This ensures more competitive products. There are a number of software tools that can be implemented to determine and optimise the overall equipment effectiveness of a plant and increase its productivity. One of the biggest problems when using OEE software is to get the machine data reliably into a compatible OEE database. Dedicated sensor wiring and data acquisition devices are needed to retrieve the data and convert it to a database format. Data retrieval systems that depend on dedicated communication wiring are not flexible enough to be used in manufacturing and packaging lines that consist of moveable components. This paper briefly discusses how OEE is computed and how LonWorks networks can be implemented to retrieve machine data and convert it to a computer database that is used by OEE software tools. It shows the flexibility of LonWorks control network and how it can be used to eliminate unnecessary wiring, by utilising existing power lines as a communication medium.