Just put the data from your PLC directly into a cloud – Then you can analyze it and improve your production
One of our Factbird customers have added a connection from their PLCs to the Blackbird Cloud solution. This first step was easily done with the Blackbird, because it is a standard product that works with almost all PLCs.
This customer wanted to pull the data from the PLCs to do analysis and see what they could learn from the history. They were interested in collecting many tags and storing them in the cloud because the data had not been used for analysis at that time. As the factory has many different machines and various PLCs, there were over 500 tags they could collect in total. They already used the product called Kepware to interface with their existing PLCs, but they wanted to get the data in a cloud, so they can analyze the data to improve the process and optimize the factory’s operation.
The Blackbird solution allows the customer to take the data directly from the customer’s PLCs using Kepware without needing to add a Scada system or any other user application. The implementation was easy and fast. It required just 1-2 days of work to connect the PLCs to the Blackbird cloud via Kepware. It did not require reprogramming of the machines or complex IT project at all.
Now the data from the PLCs is collected and stored in the Blackbird cloud where a manufacturing analytic application analyze and visualize the data. The customer can just use their smartphones, tablets or PCs to access these analytics and now they are starting to learn how to use the data. The Blackbird Application is very useful for production improvement, because that is really what it is made for. So now the customer can see the performance of all production lines, see the trends and statistics in real time. The customer analyze all the historical data from the PLC to make the right decision to optimize the factory’s total operation.
This customer is very happy to have access to all the PLC data - and to have the data analysis tools that are so easy to learn.