Search Results

Pneumatic, manually operated, drilling machines are used to produce a significant proportion of all holes drilled during wing manufacture. Drilling machine design and the manual drilling process has not changed significantly in decades. By employing miniature, low power, electronics and interfacing techniques, a monitoring system has been developed. This system enables improved process control of the manual drilling operation. Machine calibration management, measurement of drill performance, jig drilling error control and asset management are some of the benefits attainable. This project will hopefully encourage others to discover the potential for improving historically established processes, by employing modern technological developments.

Continuous process manufacture, such as oil refineries and breweries, all employ monitoring techniques, based on sensors measuring critical parameters. S.C.A.D.A. software (Supervisory Control And Data Aquisition), is used to analyse data and provide information. This technique allows performance monitoring of equipment, both instantaneously and historically. Failure prediction, using known deterioration patterns, allow Maintenance to minimise production losses, by being able to forward plan corrective activities. Batch-manufacturing industry has been slow to use S.C.A.D.A. monitoring systems because of various incompatible requirements. Systems will often not interface to numerical controls used on, for example, fastening machines. The relatively slow S.C.A.D.A. data scan rates and cyclic machinery has restricted their introduction.