Intelligent integration for hydraulics, welding technology, and anticipating maintenance

Opportunities for horizontal and vertical integration of all production facilities with the company IT to Industry 4.0 solutions are taking shape. At the Hannover Messe 2015, Rexroth is presenting integrated solutions for hydraulic systems and welding controls. In addition, the automation specialist is introducing scalable online service packages for anticipating maintenance of facilities.

Online configuration of hydraulic power units from standard components and continuous monitoring of the hydraulic circuit with a combination of decentralized intelligence and integrated sensor technology: With the new power unit product line ABPAC, Rexroth is pushing the Industry 4.0 capability of hydraulics massively forward. ABPAC supports all common Ethernet protocols and fits into any system architecture. The Open Core Engineering interface technology opens up additional degrees of freedom to link hydraulics with IT applications. Using smartphones or tablets, users can access all operating data and parameters of the power units regardless of the operating system. The decentralized intelligence of the cabinet free sensor node continuously detects all relevant system states and operating data of the power unit. Raw data and status messages derived from them can be read via the machine control or wireless via a smartphone or a tablet.

New welding system PRC7300

Users in the automotive industry in particular are looking for sustainable welding solutions, which fit into Industry 4.0 environments and also handle future material combinations. Rexroth meets these requirements with the new welding control PRC 7300. With increased computing power it achieves higher bandwidth for communication and process regulation. The PRI7000 operating software reduces response and wait times for efficient operations with significantly faster start-up. The internal web server supports diagnosis and handling also via smartphones and tablets. Using cutting-edge power electronics reduces energy consumption in welding by up to 30 percent, while idling even up to 80 percent. Optimixed programming, control, and monitoring functions allow for highest quality weld points and form the basis for welding difficult sheet combinations.

Data mining for higher availability

Large data amounts can be collected and analysed by integrating machines with Industry 4.0. Plant operators are now able to detect future wear conditions in advance. Rexroth offers with ODiN a secure cloud-based service, which significantly increases the availability of hydraulic systems in machines by processing large volumes of data. Data mining identifies changes of critical components to their defaults. This allows to reliably detect wear before it causes unplanned machine downtime.

Combined with maintenance contracts, Rexroth offers a complete package for plant operators. They receive regular status reports with recommended actions and performance of required maintenance work by Rexroth service. This service offer is suitable in particular for plants with high downtime cost, for instance in the marine & offshore sector, mining & material handling, metallurgy, pulp & paper industry, and sugar production.