Seamless Shop Floor Connectivity for Predictive Quality Analytics in Automotive Industries

Executive Summary

The project’s challenge is to become enabled to predict the results of quality testing processes by collecting various production data and by applying advanced ML and AI technologies. The predictions can determine if detailed quality tests are required or if they can be omitted (predictive quality analytics).

Amorph’s SMARTUNIFIER is used to perform the required data collection at shop floor level by integrating a set of complex production databases with AWS Cloud.
With SMARTUNIFIER seamless and secure interconnectivity between the customer’s shop floor IT systems and AWS Cloud could be successfully realized. Full reusability of created interfaces is accomplishable with SMARTUNIFIER’s built-in model repository.

About the Customer

The customer is a world leading automobile manufacturer.

Customer Challenge

A challenge for the customer’s business is to become enabled to use various production data to predict the results of quality testing with high accuracy (Predictive Quality Analytics). By being able to predict the outcome of quality checks in advance, the rate of tests to be performed can be significantly lowered, since it will be possible to bypass the test process and achieve significant time and cost savings. To seamlessly interconnect the shop floor with the AWS Cloud and to stream all required shopfloor data to the predictive quality application, Amorph’s SMARTUNIFIER is applied.

Why AWS

AWS was chosen by the customer, because of its vast technological capabilities in the fields of Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, data analytics, and computing services, which are tailored to meet the requirements of the customer and the automotive industry.

Why the Customer Chose Amorph Systems

Amorph was chosen by the customer, because of Amorph’s high experience within the domain of vertical and horizontal integration as well as its its outstanding integration technologies. After an evaluation phase, Amorph’s SMARTUNIFIER Integration Platform was selected as a powerful tool to realize the OT/IT-Gateway between local shop floor IT environments and the customer’s AWS-based cloud environment.

Amorph Systems’ Solution

For this specific project, Amorph’s SMARTUNIFIER platform is used to perform the required data collection at shop floor level (edge) by integrating a complex set of equipment and production databases with AWS Cloud using AWS Greengrass / SiteWise services and applying full semantics to the collected production data. Thus, southbound (to the shop floor) a couple of database communication channels have been configured inside SMARTUNIFIER to acquire the production data.

The collected raw data is then being joined and transformed into well-structured data objects by applying SMARTUNIFIER’s multi-channel mapping technology. Following, the transformed data is sent northbound (into AWS IOT Core) by using the modern communication protocols MQTT and OPC-UA. Within the AWS Cloud, the source data is processed using advanced ML and AI predictive quality algorithms. The prediction results are then pushed backwards from AWS Cloud to the shop floor via SMARTUNIFIER and then further used to optimize the quality testing process.

Results and Benefits

With SMARTUNIFIER seamless and secure interconnectivity between the customer’s shop floor IT systems and AWS Cloud could be successfully realized. It was possible to perform the first integration of the complex shop floor IT systems and information flows to AWS Cloud within a very short timeframe only. Full reusability of the created interfaces is reached due to SMARTUNIFIER’s built-in information model repository. The project shows clearly SMARTUNIFIER unique capabilities to provide simple, standardized, and fast interconnectivity of shop floor IT systems and devices to AWS Cloud, and vice versa within the customer’s Cloud environment.

About Amorph Systems

Amorph Systems is partner of the “aws partner network” and a leading developer of software technologies and products that transform data into value. For the Industry, Amorph provides its powerful and easy-to-use SMARTUNIFIER Integration Platform. With SMARTUNIFIER, customers can acquire a variety of production data from a large assortment of shop floor equipment, devices and IT systems. SMARTUNIFIER collects the raw data locally at the Edge, enriches it with full semantics, transforms it as required, and pushes it instantly and securely to any other IT system or into the Cloud.