On June 01, Okuma Europe welcomed 80 exclusively invited international guests to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its technical support centre in Parndorf, Austria. While lauding the past decade, the hosts also provided an intriguing look ahead: Okuma presented its latest Smart Factory Solutions, designed to improve quality and efficiency by monitoring, recording and analysing machining operations. Guests were also treated to a guided tour through the facility’s vast showroom and a variety of live machining demonstrations.
Equipped with the latest CNC machine tools, the Okuma Technical Centres (OTC) provide a testing and proving ground for customers from a wide array of industries. Strategically placed in Austria, OTC East is located within four hours driving distance for customers from most Eastern European countries, with the Vienna Airport also in close proximity. In keeping with the facility’s purpose of offering new ways to optimise production, Okuma celebrated the ten-year anniversary of OTC East by presenting customers with the technologies that will make up tomorrow’s IoT-based factories.
In a dedicated presentation, Okuma engineers introduced their range of Smart Factory Solutions to their guests, highlighting the advantages of Industry 4.0 for improving efficiency, reducing costs and shortening deliveries. Okuma’s Smart Factory Solutions consolidate the entire scheduling and manufacturing process. During a live Q&A with the Okuma management, Jürgen Kläser, Senior Manager Application at Okuma Europe, elaborated: “We receive many inquiries from customers, asking for ways to use their equipment more efficiently. Our Smart Factory Solutions provide the tools to satisfy this request.”
An important factor for Okuma is visualisation: The Machine Status Monitor displays the entire plant, showing operation reports, machining and alarm history, downtimes and more. “Visualisation helps in finding ways to improve production. Our Smart Factory Solutions also serve to reduce losses by using predictive maintenance and enable customers to schedule machine downtimes in order to keep them as short as possible,” Kläser continued. Okuma’s intelligent CNC accumulates, stores and processes big data, providing a continuous learning curve to make each run better than the one before. Okuma’s 3D Virtual Monitor provides accurate, 3-dimensional machining simulations based on the Okuma machine scheduled to cut the part and the Okuma formatted cutting program customers provide. Operators know in advance, if the desired part will be produced safely, quickly and accurately. This eliminates costly repairs and downtimes before machining even begins.
The guests from Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia got to enjoy several machining demonstrations on a wide range of Okuma machine tools. Live machining included picture milling, skiving and hobbing as well as operations utilising Okuma’s performance-enhancing Intelligent Technology suite apps. Since automation is a key ingredient for smart manufacturing, the integration of loading/unloading HALTER robots with Okuma’s machine tools also proved to be of great interest to customers.
Okuma will present its Smart Factory Solutions along with its latest machine tools, such as the manufacturer’s laser-equipped Super Multitasking Machines, at this year’s EMO Hannover (18-23 September, Hall 27, booth D20).