Protect your uptime, quality, and efficiency with Avantguard, ToolsNet 8, and Alture: Optimize — the ideal software manufacturing ecosystem that helps keep your line moving and get you back on track to full operational status.
In today’s industrial landscape, automation has become an essential tool for assembling products. From the automated documentation of processes to the precision and repeatability it provides, and much more, industrial automation has come a long way since its inception. Today, it is quicker, safer, and smarter than ever before, enabling us to streamline processes in ways that were once thought impossible.
However, while automated cells can provide improved uptime due to their reliability and repeatability, they can be more complicated to troubleshoot in the event of downtime, leaving your trusted engineers to race to address the failure and restore the cell to operational status. When this happens, every second counts in reducing costs related to downtime, which is why having a solution that ensures efficiency and quality in real-time is crucial.
Avantguard integrates with your Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) to retrieve assembly information and ensures traceability by collecting results for each step. These results help generate product reports and identify areas for improvement. In addition to assisting operators in repairing faulty products, these results can also be used to help identify anomalies and historical patterns, enabling your engineers to apply the recommended recovery or maintenance actions based on the insights. Read on to discover how Avantguard works with your existing industrial software, including Tools Net 8 and Alture: Optimize, to get your automation cells back up and running.
Avantguard at a glance
Avantguard is a scalable, error-proofing solution that prevents errors, professionally guides operators through critical tasks such as repair processes, and controls the entire assembly process, interfacing with other manufacturing equipment. With Avantguard collecting data and guiding your operators in real-time, you’ll experience a positive impact on operational uptime and efficiency.
Having Avantguard as a backup station for automated cells offers several benefits, especially when paired with ToolsNet 8 and Alture: Optimize:
- Prevent minor issues from escalating by providing step-by-step operator guidance, ensuring you stay productive and profitable even when automated systems are down.
- With some help from ToolsNet 8, you can gather data throughout the entire assembly process, giving you the insight and transparency needed to improve quality.
- Lastly, by using Avantguard and Alture: Optimize together, you can utilize the collected information to implement recommended recovery or maintenance actions, restoring your automated cell to full operation.
When automation stops, your operators don’t have to: Step-by-step operator guidance
When your automation cell goes down, it is often necessary for operators to switch to a manual process temporarily until the system is restored. Given that the process was once partly or fully automated, there’s a significantly higher risk of human error and slower throughput due to unfamiliarity with the process. This, however, doesn’t need to be your reality.
Avantguard is designed to facilitate the operating process. Developed with step-by-step visual operator guidance as well as part and tool verification, Avantguard provides manufacturers with the process control they need to minimize defects, rework, and avoid damaged parts or waste. As the solution guides your operators through each step, ensuring no mistakes occur in the process, Avantguard allows you and your operators to avoid full-line shutdowns while maintaining a focus on product quality.
Understanding your production: Insights anytime from your web browser
Product quality is paramount in manufacturing, which is why Avantguard collects manufacturing data during production. In most cases, it uses this data to guide operators and ensure the process is completed correctly; however, when paired with ToolsNet 8—a data collection and process improvement software—this information can be stored for increased traceability.
When your automated cell goes down, manufacturers may then use the data produced by Avantguard as part of the root cause detection. From the tool ID to the part and serial numbers, and even the pass/fail status of every joint, Avantguard will automatically track all relevant assembly information.
Furthermore, when combined with ToolsNet 8, you’ll gain even deeper insights into your assembly. With customizable dashboards and intuitive production overviews, ToolsNet 8 provides a clear picture of the health of both your tightening and non-tightening processes.
This powerful dynamic duo enables you to monitor, document, analyze, and continually enhance the tightening and non-tightening processes on your assembly line—from torque data to IO steps, part verification, barcode scans, and more.
Beyond process optimization, this data can help you to understand how and why your cell might be down. With these insights, your engineers can act more quickly and accurately to diagnose issues and restore your automated systems to full operation.
Stay connected: Instant production insights, anytime, anywhere
Given all this production data, a data-driven service solution is essential to analyze the information, identify inefficiencies, and predict potential issues, enabling you to optimize your production. For this, you will need Alture: Optimize. Using the data collected by Avantguard and ToolsNet 8, Alture: Optimize leverages advanced analytics to deliver real-time feedback when quality is at risk and production throughput concerns are emerging.
In the event that your automation cell goes down, you will receive instant notifications about tightening error trends and application-level statistics for your assembly, as well as alerts about potential process issues and immediate recommendations. This way, Alture: Optimize analyzes the production data collected by Avantguard and ToolsNet 8 not only to prevent unplanned downtime but also assist in restoring the cell after a failure, providing recovery and maintenance suggestions based on the insights.
With all your production data and recommendations at your fingertips, you can maintain steady production, ensure assembly quality and throughput, and provide your engineers with the insights they need to fix failures and get the cell back up and running.
Helping you to avoid serious production issues
When you experience automation cell downtime, you need all the help you can get to get it running again. With innovative industrial software solutions on your side, you can reap the benefits of improved assembly while also remaining protected in the event that your automated cell is down.
With Avantguard, your operators will be able to fill in for the automated cell, receiving visual operator guidance and instant OK/NOK feedback on the application. This ensures tightening consistency and accuracy, even when an application is unfamiliar to your operators.
When combined with ToolsNet 8, you can get a complete view of your production environment, allowing you to monitor, document, analyze, and help users continually improve the tightening process using data-driven insights.
Finally, by adding Alture: Optimize to your software ensemble, you’ll unlock powerful predictive maintenance capabilities. Using the data captured by Avantguard and ToolsNet 8, Alture: Optimize can help you prevent unplanned downtime and assist in quickly restoring the cell after a failure with intelligent recovery and maintenance suggestions based on the insights available.
Together, these solutions form a smart, connected ecosystem that enhances operational resilience, improves process quality, and drives long-term productivity.
Prepare your production for the worst; enhance it during the best
Whether you’re looking to enhance your assembly or to future-proof it, our experts are ready to help. Contact us today to discover how Avantguard, ToolsNet 8, and Alture: Optimize can be tailored to meet your unique production needs.
Get in touch with our experts to take the first step toward digitalizing your assembly.
