Greetings from Bruce Blum

Greetings:

If you’ve priced new production equipment recently, you know the cost of reliable, high-volume machinery has increased and is going even higher. And, with more and more production equipment made overseas, and purchased with a weak US Dollar, the cost of new equipment becomes even more daunting.

Today, some production equipment isn’t built as well as yesterday’s, either. The production equipment of 20 to 30 years ago was designed to provide around 40 years of mechanical service. Some of today’s production equipment may provide a fourth of that. In fact after rebuilding, older machine mechanics may last another 20 to 30 years.

Additionally, some production equipment may be so old that PLC controls are no longer available or no longer supported by the manufacturer.

Further, in today’s economy, getting approval to purchase new production equipment can be very difficult. In fact, it is far more realistic to get an approval to improve existing equipment.

Lastly, retrofitting, rebuilding and retooling of existing production machines updates the functions of the machine. Updating controls gives manufacturers many new advantages that produce a fast and realistic return on investment.

Here’s why. Smarter, faster devices improve the total system by designing in new drive technologies, such as servo controls. These automation products improve minimum cycle times and enable maintenance personnel to fix the machine and, most importantly, allow a production associate to troubleshoot the machine.

Bruce Blum President/CEO RECO, LLC

Modern automation devices communicate with each other and share data. The capabilities of automatically changing machine parameters and setup information reduce human intervention and errors, as well as reduce setup and retooling times. These capabilities allow for a more flexible manufacturing environment. Sharing data enables manufacturers to get real-time and historical information about their manufacturing processes. This data is valuable for process improvements and historic data tracking.

The worldwide leader in innovation products, Siemens, is one of RECO’s primary partners in providing cost-efficient equipment updates. Siemens’ components combined with the technical knowledge of the RECO Automation Specialist greatly reduce the time and potential pitfalls of a process improvement update.

It has been said, everything old is new again. Today’s new programmable components make the old new - and more productive and more profitable.

If you would like to know more about the benefits of retrofitting, rebuilding and retooling your production equipment, as always, the RECO Team is at your service.

Very respectfully,

Bruce Blum
President/CEO

Tired of Over-Complicated, Over-Priced HMI?

Siemens and RECO make HMI simple and affordable.

Siemens Energy and Automation has introduced a new line of full-featured Human Machine Interfaces (HMI). The new multi-panel (MP) family of HMIs range from a 5.7” color touch panel to a 19” TFT active matrix touch panel including a wireless model.

Capable of interfacing with Siemens PLCs and most major manufacturers' PLCs, such as Rockwell’s Control Logix via Ethernet/IP. Utilizing a simple tag converter, you can import your L5K program file and have all your tag names in just minutes.

Siemens SIMATIC WinCC flexible configuration software makes it easy to develop an HMI project.

WinCC flexible compliments the hardware of the MP panels with several features such as:

• Basic push buttons and pilot lights
• Real-time and archive trending and graphing
• Alarm and event viewing and archiving
• Recipe management and control
• Audit tracking for CFR21 part 11
• Remote monitoring and control of panel over the internet using Sm@rtService
• Client/server between multiple HMIs using Sm@rtAccess
• OPC server for vertical integration to higher level MES/ERP systems

Please contact your local RECO applications engineer for a demonstration and competitive pricing.

Data Collection Does Not Have To Be Complicated or Expensive.

Vertically integrated Data Collection from the Plant Floor to IT to the Boardroom

In today’s manufacturing world there is a demand to get plant floor production information to the boardroom.

The collection, interpretation and adjustments of and from plant floor production information are vital to profitable manufacturing.

In order to do this, RECO bridges the gap between plant floor and Information Technology (IT).

RECO knows that different areas of our customers’ companies require different data and information; and different areas of our customers’ companies may also view the collection of plant floor production information differently. So, while IT and the manufacturing/maintenance engineer may view plant floor production information differently, frequently they are interested in the same goals.

RECO’s knowledge of the manufacturing world, coupled with understanding common manufacturing processes, allows RECO to fully understand what customers want and need. The custom designed solutions RECO provides allow customers to take ownership in the system and so they do not have to rely on the solution provider should there be problems with the system.

The systems RECO designs are flexible and cost-efficient. And, since RECO knows the manufacturing environment and the workings of multiple automation platforms including, Rockwell, Siemens, Modicon, Mitsubishi, Omron, GE and many more, our customers do not have interoperability issues.

RECO also knows, a data collection system is not truly successful unless our customer’s manufacturing process is well understood. Understanding a customer's manufacturing process starts with evaluating and measuring that customer’s specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

The KPIs that customers are most often interested in are:

1. Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE)

• Production count
• Scrap count
• Machine capacity
• Visual charts and graphs of data historically and in real time
• Automatic and manual report generation

2. Downtime

• Meantime between failures (MTBF)
• Meantime to repair failure (MTFF)
• Downtime reason codes
• Reason code frequencies
• Maintenance reaction times
• Visual charts and graphs of data historically and in real time

RECO will review your company’s KPIs and data collection requirements. Following this thorough review, RECO will provide a Proposal outlining the data collection system that’s best for you.

To learn more contact your RECO applications engineer.

This Quarter’s RECO Super Values – SIEMENS LOGO!

Now, Touch Screen Interface Allows You Control -
You Never Need to Open the Panel!

LOGO! Basic and LOGO! Pure

Different voltages, i. e. 12 V DC, 24 V AC / DC, 115 / 240 V AC / DC

• Can be used for a wide range of applications Automatic changeover from daylight saving time to winter time
• Reduces maintenance overhead Password protection
• Protects your know-how 38 integrated, pre-tested functions
• No additional devices, such as elapsed time counter, are required Linking of 200 functions is possible
• Extensive applications can be implemented without restrictions Eight digital inputs (incl. four AIs at 12 / 24 V DC) and four digital outputs on board Display of message texts, setpoint and actual values as well as direct modification of the values on the display

To Learn More Click Here

Four Questions

Here are this issue’s Four Questions.

As you know, each issue of The RECO RECAP offers you the chance to will great prizes by answering four questions correctly. If you answer all four correctly you are automatically be entered into a drawing to win an Olympus Digital Camera and other great prizes.

This Issue’s Prizes include:

One First Prize: Olympus Digital Camera Model FE340-BL

5 Second Prizes: $30 Outback Steakhouse Gift Certificates

5 Third Prizes: $25 Applebee’s Gift Certificates