Developing a cloud virtual maintenance system for machine tools management

Developing efficient maintenance system for Taiwan's machine-tool industry is important because of the cloud service enhancement recently. This study provides innovative maintenance system via cloud virtual computing for machine tool management. The virtual maintenance cloud is a monitoring system for precision manufacturing plant. The virtual maintenance cloud can combine eight kinds of numerical controllers following TMTC (Taiwan MTConnect Protocol). It is compatible with MTConnect function to build the client monitoring application services for the whole plant. The system provides 3 ways to determine the tool life cycle including tool usage frequency, tool usage time, and tool usage distance. A remote control platform was developed for controlling specific number of tools. The system can extract numerical controller data across various brands to achieve the whole plant monitoring. The proposed system was demonstrated by following TMTC communication protocol to develop tool management and application services for machine tool industry. The tool life management system can enhance information used for tool usage analysis for manufacturing machine tools. Thus, the system can increase tool usage rate, decrease processing time, and reduce waste of workpiece materials.