As a key element of its part manufacturing solution set, Siemens PLM Software introduces Shop Floor Connect for Teamcenter, an add-on application that provides direct access to manufacturing data managed in Teamcenter and released for production. The primary focus of the new capability is in part manufacturing and the key use case is the delivery of CNC program files directly to machine tool controllers from Teamcenter.
Software that manages the connection of data files to machine tools is typically referred to as Direct Numerical Control or DNC software. With the new SFC product, the connection to the centralized Teamcenter database ensures that manufacturing data remains secure and the manufacturing plan-to-production process is controlled. Traditional DNC systems have relatively simplistic, standalone databases that are held on shop floor computers, sometimes outside of any company-wide IT structure. The SFC product avoids data duplication as the data remains in Teamcenter. Data revisions are managed and this helps to make sure the correct manufacturing data is used on the shop floor.
With Shop Floor Connect, machine operators can directly access data in Teamcenter that’s released to production. With the right authorization and using job numbers or work package identifiers, operators can locate the correct data files needed for production, including CNC programs, tool lists, set up sheets and drawings. All that’s needed is a device with a web browser to run the machine tool or user application interface and establish connection with Teamcenter via the Shop Floor Connect software.
In the scenario where CNC programs are created, modified, or optimized by the production team on the shop floor, these can be saved back into Teamcenter and maintained as new data or revisions to existing data.
The Shop Floor Connect for Teamcenter software has already been deployed at a number of key accounts that use Teamcenter and NX CAM. The product is listed under our Tecnomatix product line alongside the Teamcenter manufacturing applications.
A fact sheet on SFC can be downloaded here: http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/tecnomatix/plan_validate/connection_production.shtml
For more information on the part manufacturing solution please take a look at the multi-media tour on the Part Manufacturing Engineering page: http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/plm/large_enterprise/part_manufacturing_engineering.shtml
