Initial Feasibility Study - Automatic Spring Products Corp. - Root

Background

Automatic Spring Products Corp. currently has a set of production equipment mainly involved in shaping and cutting steel spools. At this time, it is necessary for employees to manually complete jobs by leaving the workcenter and utilize a PLEX kiosk to update the job status and start the next production process. Additionally, any time that the workcenter is not in production mode, consumed materials are not updated in the system. This is problematic as some material is used during setup, leading to an overestimation of available resources for production and a resultant inability to complete jobs. Our root server, using the sensors being set up by another team, should automate the communication with PLEX API’s and accurately track resource consumption during all phases of production. Our server should also be able to modify workcenter status based on data from the mesh network being set up by the other team.

The ASPC production machines also need occasional blade replacements due to wear, and it is up to employees to determine when this needs to happen. Once we achieve the aforementioned functionality, we should set up our server to store and eventually process data from acoustic sensors on the production machines in order to automatically check for dull blades to ensure they are replaced on time.

Features Desired

Communication with Leaf and branch

• Utilizing wifi and ‘mesh’ network
• Needs to be able receive information to from each leaf for storage
• Send information from root to leafs for employee use

• Metrics

• Time per item
• Parts
• Scrap

• Other vital information

Storage of information received

• SSD attached to hardware
• Needs to be able to store:

• Part information especially part numbers
• Productions timestamps
• Other vital information

Communication with PLEX cloud

• Regular or intermittent communication as decided by user

• Regular communication during times of high connectivity
• Intermittent communication during time of low connectivity

Use Artificial Intelligence(push goal)

• Anticipate ordering
• Identify problem areas

Software

Languages

• C
• SQL

Operating System

• Ubuntu

Libraries, SDKs, and APIs

• PLEX Developers account(s)
• PLEX Inventory Operations Management API
• PLEX Job Scheduling API
• PLEX Journal Entries API
• PLEX Parts API
• PLEX Production Operations Management API
• PLEX Supply Items API

Hardware

• A few (3-6) Raspberry PI devices

• Associated peripherals needed for tasks like wifi communication, storage, etc

Repository/Shared Drive Policy

1. Weekly push to main during Saturday meeting
2. Split by sub-team

• Database sub-team
• Communication sub-team