AGV Maintenance Automation

May 2024

#Predictive maintenance #Innovation #Digitizing #Automation #Condition monitoring

Project's goal

Automatic generation of real-time reports from the AGV monitor software to the SAP PM system, creation of clear reporting in Power BI and display of the history of AGV error states and the associated elimination of manual entries - digitization of the process.

Results

FabLab Day was successfully realized, and after the introductory block of visits by representatives of the management of individual Px areas, the event was attended by 74 participants from various departments of the company.

Solution description

The subject was the automatic generation of error state messages from the AGV monitor software to the SAP PM system and the associated automatic reporting. Currently, 173 AGVs are monitored in 11 halls. 8 halls are located at the Mladá Boleslav plant, 2 halls at the Kvasiny plant and 1 hall is located at the Vrchlabí plant.

Automated guided vehicle are Automated Logistics Systems representing a comprehensive logistics automation solution designed for the transport and transportation of goods. The individual AGVs are always monitored at their production facility by an AGV monitor that collects information about the AGVs.

Prior to the idea of this project, error states were manually transcribed by logistics workers from an AGV monitor onto paper and then manually transcribed again into Excel, from where reporting was then created in the Power BI program. These activities were time-consuming and inefficient for logistics personnel. Transcribed data is often outdated and burdened with the risk of human error.

At the individual plants where AGVs are in operation, it was necessary in the first place to interconnect the AGV control and SAP PO. The SAP PO environment was further connected to the SAP environment (PM module). Operational error states reports are now sent automatically from AGV control to SAP PM immediately after an event occurs.

It was also necessary to create clear and automated reporting in Power BI. The reporting data come from three sources:

1. SAP (PM module), from where information about worked operational statuses are sent to Data Lake, and then to Power BI.
2. Operational statuses that are sent in real time via DASOP directly to Power BI. The type of communication here is bidirectional asynchronous.
3. Operating statuses from the supplier's DV server. The server is interconnected to Data Lake and Power BI.

Data related to AGV error states from SAP (PM module) and the supplier's server are regularly stored in the Data Lake for at least 2 years for the purpose of reporting and displaying the history of AGV error states. The error history of AGVs is used to optimize logistics processes.

The reporting was created according to the requirements of internal logistics and is located on the Cloud so that it is available to all users of the operation.