Beyond the Concept: Recent Episodes
Concept Systems
If you're looking to stay current with all things automation, look no further. This is Beyond The Concept, a podcast by Concept Systems, the automation experts.
After a momentous twenty-three years, Michael Helm has stepped down in his role as CEO with Concept Systems. Helm passed the torch down to Steve Strong, who chatted with host Tyler Kern about his future-forward visions for Concept Systems.
After spending almost 15 years at the Boeing Company, Strong knows a thing or two about design and production systems. Operating in a highly complex and structured space, Strong made the switch over to Concept Systems to be a Regional Manager out of the Seattle office.
“I’ve seen a lot of old, a lot of new, but it was all in one specific place,” said Strong, who is excited to move up from his role as regional manager after 15 months with the company. Strong was adamant about the strong potential that growth Concept Systems has. He remarked, “Concept…really is unique as an automation integrator. We don’t specialize in a specific market. We’re not, you know, a very niche provider of a single product. We’ve kind of seen it all and done it all…We’re really well-situated to grow.”
While Concept has always been known for providing the right solution for unique and complex problems, Strong aims to take it a step higher and build organic growth through fostering relationships, inserting Concept into new markets, and taking some risks.
Strong said, “The plan is to grow. The plan is to find new markets to grow into and really, I’m excited about just how well-situated we are to do that…”
With only a month at the top under his belt, Strong is just starting to see how Concept’s future-forward strategy will play out. In the near-term, at least, Strong aims to direct regions to find new customers in the aerospace, food, and product development industries in their markets.
Strong advanced, “...the world’s a different place, the company’s a different company, or will be a different company, and I think, again, we’re so well-situated to take advantage of that.”
We breathe without thinking. Blink without noticing. But when it comes down to it, all of our normal bodily functions are not as easy and effortless as they appear - at least not for machines. Justin Garski the Americas OEM Segment Manager for Packaging, Converting, Print and Web at Rockwell and Evan Gonnerman, Senior Controls Engineer for Concept Systems, sit down with Tyler Kern to discuss the simplification of robotic systems in a complex world.
As one of Rockwell’s “robot experts” Garski said, “I’m responsible for OEM growth, so people like Concept Systems and their peers in the packaging market space and then tissue and diaper and things like that…beyond that my background was all tied to robotics and advanced motion control stuff…”
Gonnerman explained that while many people think the main concept of robotics is about the robotic arm, it boils down to the details, “A lot of robotics comes down to the peripherals.” Understanding and conceptualizing quality control measures, how the arm interfaces in a solution space, the output and input are all key ingredients in the creation process.
“When we’re talking about this making things simple, that was, this is, basically my entire experience in automation. Learning the things that really simplify your life and then honing those hard,” noted Gonnerman, “...Take the complexity and make it simple.”
Garksi agreed that while there’s a lot of work that goes into the final product and the solution, there are a lot of steps to take toward simplicity including using the right tools. “How do you drive that simplicity?...I think if you develop a couple of key relationships with those suppliers that you trust and you start with them…” said Garski. Concept Systems is a key example of this mission.
On this point, Gonnerman said, “Most of the complexities and projects I will see will not be because the automation tool was complex. It’s because the process was complex.” Concept Systems knows it doesn’t and shouldn’t be this way. To this end, Concept System’s ultimate goal is moving repetitive, dangerous, and difficult processes from people to automation - to robots. It’s not if. It’s not when. It’s now.
Two of the main contributing factors driving the financial success of greenfield projects are budgeting and schedule. Rick Pruden, Strategic Solutions Specialist at Concept Systems, and Ron Schiedler, Principal Engineer at Concept Systems, spoke to Beyond the Concept’s Tyler Kern about mitigating these risk factors from a control standpoint.
Pruden said to mitigate risks; the best starting point is to follow real-world proven experience processes. “You need something that promotes open communication with all the parties involved. You need something to provide an up-to-date understanding of each other’s expectations and responsibilities throughout the project.”
Concept systems utilize a project methodology platform for every size project they handle. “The process we use starts at the initial stage of proposal development, and it’s followed via multiple steps throughout the final acceptance,” Pruden said.
Schiedler said before selecting the OEMs for greenfield projects, choose a control system. Bringing the right system integrator on board is catamount to success. “This way, they start out knowing how to proceed once they get into the designs, the hardware selection and communication between other OEMs and create that conformity.”
The earlier, the better is the secret to success when involving a system’s integrator in a greenfield project. “This is one of the most overlooked pieces of a large greenfield project,” Pruden said. “And the answer is from the beginning. If you don’t involve an integrator in the initial equipment design phase, you’re often left with these islands of automation that lead to redundant equipment and ambiguity of responsibility; you don’t
have that control continuity that you’re looking for.” And when selecting a control systems standard, people should look for local support, availability of spare parts, ease of programming and integration, and a system that provides flexibility.
3D machine vision scanners are changing the manufacturing industry by augmenting automation systems to make their capabilities more powerful and adaptable. Terry Hermary, co-founder and CEO of Hermary, and Doug Taylor, principal engineer at Concept Systems, joined host of Beyond the Concept Tyler Kern to discuss how this technology is benefiting the industry.
The data acquired through 3D vision allows companies to learn throughput information, find gaps in processes, measure goals in real time and predict issues before they arise. This is possible through the three different types of data collected: 3D data, solution data and results data.
The main benefit from this technology is the ability to interact with the data, the flexibility and level of accuracy in providing solutions.
“It is amazing the information you can gather beyond what you’re actually looking for,” Taylor said.
However, Taylor also warned that it is easy to get ‘lost’ in the massive amount of information collected.
While many industries have realized the benefits of 3D vision, the semi-conductor industry is the top adaptor, closely followed by wood processing. Hermary gave some real-life examples of manufacturer benefits, such as sawmills that have gone from labor-intensive, dangerous environments to significantly improved safety and much higher throughput.
Hermary aims to partner with companies and help incorporate this type of technology to make their processes more efficient and automated. Unfortunately, the biggest impediment to implementing this technology is the lack of system integrators that are 3D scanning savvy.
With every industry seeing a mass exodus of employees, 3D machine vision is a great way to fill those staffing gaps with robots, especially for repetitive tasks.
Concept Systems and Hermary invites customers to bring their biggest challenges for them to find a solution for.
Steve Strong, Regional Engineering Manager, Seattle, at Concept Systems, spoke with Tyler Kern about some of the automation challenges in the airline and aerospace industries. Something both markets have in common: they each have expensive and complex products to manufacture and automate.
Strong said because of these complexities, the proposals Concept Systems does and the projects they execute in that space are often some of their most expensive, complicated, and significant projects.
“You have potentially millions of dollars of product that you’re working on, and so you have to be cognizant of that and make sure there’s no margin for error in the work you do,” Strong explained.
A lot of pre-planning goes into these types of projects to ensure the expected outcome is the outcome. And Strong said another product Concept Systems offers is their collision avoidance product called On Guard.
“We have a product that can be added on to the top of any motion platform,” Strong said. “We see this getting purchased with robot platforms. In real-time, it can track the state of that work cell and compare it against a digital model to ensure that the next move won’t cause a collision or cause an error in the work cell.”
When Strong looks at the big picture and all the major players in the airline and aerospace markets, he sees a move towards automation in manufacturing instead of the more traditional static build approach of the past.
“I do think we will see more of an automotive factory style of production in both the commercial space and the defense and space areas,” Strong noted.
Michael Maas, Senior Engineer, and Sergei Furduy, Principal Engineer at Concept Systems, Inc., joined Beyond the Concept’s Tyler Kern to discuss all things crane retrofits.
There are several instances where crane retrofits might come into play. Older cranes with aging parts are one example Maas offered.
“Also, if you want to gain more functionality out of something you already have,” Maas explained. “You can do a retrofit to make it easier to operate and be more in line with the processes that you see in the future, or even currently. And there are new crane retrofits too, so you can add it to your application however you need.”
Furduy explained that the return on investment and extension of the life, as well as the and functionality of a crane was the goal for any crane owner. However, ROI could take the shape of increased functionality for the crane or a retrofit to decrease downtime.
“For me, as an integrator, all of the factors are important,” Furduy said. “Downtime is, of course, the biggest issue for most of the older cranes. But the safety of operations is important as well. When you’re doing a retrofit, you don’t have to repeat the old design. You may choose, as Michael was saying, to get additional functionality that you’re crane never had before.”
Furduy added that Concept Systems is always available and happy to assist people looking to retrofit their cranes. Concept Systems can review options and explore all the possibilities to take into account when considering a crane retrofit.
Donavan Moore, the Electrical Design Department Manager at Concept Systems, educated host Tyler Kern on the considerations and selection process for UL 508A components.
UL 508A is the standard for the construction of industrial control panels with the first edition coming out in 2001. “It’s been the go-to standard for industrial control panel design,” Moore said. “They come up with safety and quality standards regarding components and component selections and usage.”
Control panel configurations are another standard set by UL 508A. “It defines ways to size wire, circuit protection, and makes sure that motors and stuff like that have the overloads that they need to be safe,” Moore said.
Moore noted that there sometimes is confusion between components that are UL listed vs. components that are UL recognized. “If you’ve got a component that is UL listed, you can pretty much use that without many restrictions in your cabinet,” Moore said. “If you’ve got UL recognized components, the first thing is you can’t use all UL recognized components. But the other thing that happens too is there’s sometimes caveats to their usage.” Bottom line: Moore recommended that people research before installing a UL-recognized component to ensure safe and proper usage.
So how does one determine whether a particular UL 508A cabinet design should use UL listed or UL recognized components? Moore said he goes to the manufacturer, looks up UL file numbers, and goes to the UL website to plug in the file information and get a component category code. “That category code tells us what standards that part was tested to, and then the UL 508A standard itself has a chart in there that can tell us how those items are supposed to be used,” Moore said.
Automation and robotics usage is accelerating industrial settings. While the automotive industry was the first to capitalize, others are following suit.
SCADA is the control systems architecture that provides complete oversight over devices in the field by collecting data in real-time and letting supervisory management make actionable decisions. Keith Smee, Engineer with Concept Systems, led a beginner’s guide discussion in SCADA systems on Beyond the Concept.
His goal: provide some tips and tricks for those running into challenges maximizing their existing SCADA system or debating deploying one for the first time but confused by technical specifics and best practices for integration.
The importance of IT involvement in SCADA is something Smee said is super important and an essential tip for those unfamiliar with this type of system. “The way things are going now, everything is getting networked together,” Smee said. “Everything is going to be server-based, everything requires a lot of management, and the people who are doing that right now at your company are those IT people. It pays a lot to have them involved right at the beginning.”
Donavan Moore, Electrical Design Department Manager at Concept Systems, and Jerry Flynn, Principal Engineer at Concept Systems, talked about all things controls retrofits on Beyond the Concept. They had the tips and the insights for considering and the factors involved when determining if a retrofit makes sense. Moore’s work in design automation dates back to 1997, and he has a lot of experience doing retrofits. Flynn’s experience in controls spans the course of 25 years. Why are companies interested in retrofits, and how do they make the proper evaluation on when it’s time to consider a retrofit?
2020 – perhaps the less said, the better. It was a difficult year for many people on both a personal and professional level. Yet, automation continued to grow despite the pandemic.
And, now that the outlook is looking better for 2021, many companies who may have rued not implementing more automation before the pandemic could be looking to make sure they don’t get caught in a bind again.
“I think 2021 is, from an automation perspective, all about opportunity and finding those efficiency, quality and safety opportunities on the manufacturing floor,” said Michael Gurney, President & CEO of Concept Systems.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or OEE, is a metric that attempts to identify the percentage of planned production time that’s truly productive – but does it even come close to telling the entire story of a manufacturer’s operation?
According to Wave7 Founder and CEO David McKay, it’s even worse than that. In fact, McKay said, OEE provides no specific, actionable information for manufacturers to address lost productivity.
McKay joined this episode of Concept Systems’ Beyond the Concept with host Tyler Kern to outline his five reasons why OEE is an epic fail. They include:
- OEE does not show you when machines are starved for materials
- OEE does not tell you when machine adjustment and maintenance is required
- OEE does not provide a specific machine or production line problems
- OEE does not show specific downstream blocks or problems
- OEE provides no specific, actionable loss information
Luckily, there are solutions. In elevating Wave7 to the “No. 1 performance improvement service for packaging lines” in the world, McKay has identified actual best practices that go beyond OEE and help manufacturers address their unique challenges.
To improve performance on the plant floor, manufacturers need a clear method to manage performance, tools to apply that method, a simplified and specific language of performance, and management and resource support to ensure these best practices are applied and acted upon.
“That’s something that the boardrooms have ignored for several years,” McKay said. “Let’s say it’s a bottler putting beer in bottles. Let’s talk about the losses that particular machine can experience. It can be starved, [blocked, idle or down]. These are the things that specifically identify the physical issue the machine is having. … There’s no reason to abstract this [language].”
An automation project has plenty in common with a house. No matter how grand the idea starts, it’s unlikely to be a successful project if the blueprints and foundation aren’t right.
That’s why Marques Harrer, Strategic Solutions Specialist for Concept Systems, said the company puts so much emphasis on front-end loading in automation projects. The better the plans, the more likely it is that a project can truly deliver the return on investment companies expect.
“The automation roadmap for Concept Systems really is an embodiment of that front-end loading project management philosophy,” Harrer said. “It’s an embodiment of the extra emphasis on making sure you plan correctly, making sure you can trust the return on investment calculations that you do as a business and the labor requirements, because you have an automation project where you say, ‘OK, at the end of this, I’m not going to need two extra people to do this particular task, or I’m going to need two more mechanics.”
Harrer said utilizing front-end loading can be critical to the success and ultimately make the process smoother for not only the Concept team putting the project in motion, but also the companies they are working with.
“I think Concept’s life is made easier and I think the customers’ life is made easier, because, when you have the proper planning and the proper process … you develop documentation that matches to what you executed to,” he said.
All of it leads to a firm foundation and a project likely to produce the desired results.
Whether it’s peeling potatoes or managing a city’s water supply, optimizing production is an important component of any manufacturing business.
In the past, automation systems were difficult to fine-tune without a significant disruption, but with things becoming increasingly digital and more and more products being designed with things like Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx distrusted control system, integration is now easier than ever.
That is only speeding up with devices moving to ethernet/IP or Highway Addressable Remote Transducer solutions.
“A migration of digital technologies of any type has been helpful, but in the ethernet area, our strategy has been to enable standard ethernet that you would use in an office-type environment to have a similar type of approach in the manufacturing area,” said Kevin Wright, the Strategic Alliance Manager for Rockwell Automation, who worked with Concept Systems on a potato project. “This way, if there is any kind of IT support requirements, new IT hardware, switching and other ethernet-related capabilities, those can be extended right into the plant floor without having to have a second platform or separate type of maintenance staff to address the networking issues.”
Knowing what the issue is or having access to a device that may be hard to physically reach makes things much easier for people like Ryan Beesley, Regional Engineering Manager with Concept Systems, and the people he works with to figure out the next steps to take.
“Now we’ve already got a very focused maintenance approach, and we already have a very focused operational understanding of what the problem is,” Beesley said. “It really brings operations to a more efficient place where operators are empowered to make decisions and do operational tasks that are most efficient for their job.”
It may not be Rosie from the Jetsons, but robots are certainly here to stay in American life. It just turns out robots are a lot better at manufacturing than they are around the house.
Advances in robotics in recent years are changing the manufacturing industry, said Eric Potter, Director of Engineering at FANUC America.
“When you look at the technology of vision and tactical feedback with force sensors or torque sensors and machine learning and things like that to start out, being able to apply those technologies in a way that helps manufacturing is a pretty big movement that’s going on right now,” Potter said. “Allowing the machines to see and to feel and to learn from previous cycles is really making robotics and automation a lot more capable and easier to use than in the previous days.”
One of the big keys is collaborative robots like FANUC’s all-new CRX series. With robots like the ones produced by FANUC, integrating robots no longer requires an enormous overhaul of a workspace, as solutions are able to work alongside their human counterparts safely for a more efficient and profitable result, said Evan Gonnerman, Controls Engineer at Concept Systems.
“Basically, this collaborative robot gives a whole new stop on what robots can do, where previous processes required an operator to check something or had a process that may or may not be tenable through operation. Now, you can keep that operator in that workspace, but you can have a robot working around them doing all the other tasks that may be more suitable for automation,” Gonnerman said. “It’s going to be very exciting to see where that goes and what end users can think of for using this robot.”
So, even if they’re not making you breakfast, robots can definitely make things easier for manufacturers.
Robots and automation may seem like an expensive idea for many business owners, but automation be more within reach than previously thought and can produce excellent return on investment.
Whether painting a factory or removing waste in a facility’s process, the ROI for automation can often be measured in months.
“Automation in and of itself is really designed to recognize efficiency gains. The common places we talk to customers about where to look for those gains are in reducing waste, improving quality, replacing manual labor – that can be a costly area for the manufacturing process – improving throughput speed, reducing downtime, and making equipment more maintainable,” said Michael Gurney, President and CEO of Concept Systems. “Those are things automation can really help with and areas automation has been helping with for years.”
While the best place to invest in automation may not be immediately obvious to customers used to doing things a certain way, Concept Sales and Marketing Director Ryan Wasmund said the seasoned crew Concept boasts can find the right inefficiencies quickly and guide customers through the entire process.
“Five hundred years of experience across our engineering just really speaks to what we’ve been able to do over the last 20 years. We have a slew of engineers that can go after different projects, from controls to robotics, our mechanical design group, and our service team,” Wasmund said. “We can help our customers from start to finish. That really is what the benefit of having that much experience gives our customers.”
Concept typically will walk the floor and search for the categories Gurney mentioned where automation can come alongside current operations, make the most sense and make sure customers are getting a strong return on their investment.