JPH09131648A - Monitoring device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To cope with the management of the production line by providing a data transmitting means to transmit the data which are judged defective to an upper control device to collect the highly necessary data even with small number of networks. SOLUTION: A host computer 10 transmits the boundary value Which is arbitrarily set by a boundary value setting part 11 to PC1, and stores it as a boundary value set table 22 in the PC1. In the PC1, a data judging part 21 stores the tact data received from a production machinery 100 in a ring buffer A23 for each reception, and the tact data are judged with the boundary value stored in the boundary value set table 22 as the judging criterion. If any tact data are judged defective, the data are transmitted to the host computer 10 by a transmission/reception part 26, and stored in a ring buffer B24.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a monitoring device that collects the operating state of each production machine in order to centrally manage the work of each production machine in a production line in which a plurality of production machines are arranged. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, in a production line having a plurality of work stages, the operation of a production machine arranged on each work stage is controlled in order to centrally manage the progress of work and the flow of work at each work stage. The state is collected by a host computer connected by a network through a PC (programmable controller). The configuration for collecting such data is called a monitoring device.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an example of a production line. As shown in the drawing, each work stage A, B ... Has one or a plurality of robots a1, a2. Machines b1, b2, ... Or, in the case of manual work, a switch for instructing the start / end of the work is provided, and these production machines are provided for each work stage or each production machine. Are controlled by PC1, PC2, ...
Then, each PC is connected to a host computer (workstation or the like) 10 by a network 50, and a production instruction at each work stage is instructed to each PC from the host computer, while each PC
The tact data of each production machine, for example, the time required for one tact (tact time) is received, and these tact data are collected in the host computer 10 through the network 50.

[0004]

However, when the number of production machines on the production line increases, the amount of data sent from each PC becomes enormous, and in order to collect all the data, the line capacity is very large. There is a problem that it is not economical because the capital investment amount increases because it is necessary to use a large network. In addition, even if the line capacity can be increased, when using the received data for management of the production line, it is necessary to perform processing to retrieve only the necessary data from the enormous amount of data. However, the problem that it is not possible to respond instantaneously due to the time required for the above will eventually cause a reversal phenomenon such that more appropriate management can be achieved by managing multiple production machines than by centrally managing multiple production machines. There are also problems.

Therefore, in the present invention, the low order control device P
The data collected by the host computer, which is the host control device, is narrowed down from C, and even if there are few networks,
The objective is to provide monitoring equipment that can collect more-needed data and can immediately respond to production line management.

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention for achieving the above object is configured as follows. The present invention according to claim 1 comprises a lower control device for controlling a production machine, and an upper control device in which the lower control devices are connected by a plurality of networks, and the upper control device operates from the lower control device to the production machine. In the monitoring device for collecting the data indicating the operating state of the above, the data receiving means for receiving the data indicating the operating state from the production machine in the lower control device and the good or bad of the data received by the data receiving means are determined. Determination means, a determination criterion storage means that stores determination criteria used by the determination means to determine whether the data is good or bad, and data transmission for transmitting the data determined to be defective by the determination means to the host controller. Means, and a monitoring device.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the monitoring device according to the first aspect, the judgment standard setting means for setting the judgment standard in the upper control device, and the judgment set by the judgment standard setting means. Transmitting means for transmitting the reference to the lower-level control device.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the monitoring device according to the first or second aspect, the low-order control device has defective data storage means for storing the data determined to be defective. And

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the monitoring device according to the first to third aspects, data indicating the operating state of the production machine received by the data receiving means is stored in the lower control device. It is characterized by having a data storage means.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the monitoring apparatus according to the third or fourth aspect, the data storage means in the lower control device stores the data received from the production machine in a time series. When storing the data determined to be defective, the defective data storage unit stores at least one data before and after the data determined to be defective from the data arranged in the time series together. .

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below. The configuration on the production line to which the monitoring device of the present invention is applied is the same as that shown in FIG.
And PC1, PC2 ... Arranged on each work stage are connected via a network 50.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a monitoring device in which the present invention is applied to this production line configuration. That is, the host control device in the monitoring device of the present invention is applied to the host computer 10, and the lower control device in the monitoring device of the present invention is applied to each PC. Although only one PC 1 is shown in the figure, a plurality of PCs having the same configuration as the PC 1 are connected to the host computer 10.

The part of the host computer 10 that functions as a monitoring device includes a boundary value setting processing section 11 which is a judgment standard setting means, a boundary value table 12 in which the set boundary values are stored in the host computer 10, and a PC. A data storage processing unit 13 that performs a process for storing the transmitted tact data, a tact data file 14 that stores the tact data, a data request processing unit 15 that makes a data request to the PC when arbitrarily collecting the tact data. ,
The tact data file 14 is composed of a search processing unit 16 for searching for necessary data and a transmission / reception processing unit 17 for transmitting / receiving a signal to / from a PC, and further includes a keyboard, a touch panel, a display, a printer and the like (not shown). Input / output devices are provided.

On the other hand, the portion functioning as the monitoring device of the PC is a data receiving means for receiving tact data from the production machine 100 as data indicating the operating state of the production machine and a determination means for determining whether the data is good or bad. A data judgment processing unit 21, a boundary value setting table 22 which is a judgment standard storage unit that stores a boundary value as a judgment standard used for this judgment, and a ring buffer which is a data storage unit that stores tact data received from a production machine in time series. A23, ring buffer B which is defective data storage means
24, a request response processing unit 25 that transmits requested data in response to a data request from the host computer 10, and a transmission / reception processing unit 26 that transmits / receives signals to / from the host computer 10 and that also serves as transmitting means. .

The monitoring device configured as described above is
The host computer 10 uses the boundary value setting processing unit 11
The boundary value arbitrarily set from is transmitted to the PC and stored as the boundary value setting table 22 in the PC. On the other hand, P
In C, the ring buffer A is received each time the tact data received from the production machine 100 by the data determination processing unit 21 is received.
23, and the tact data is judged based on the boundary value stored in the boundary value setting table 22 as a criterion, and if there is tact data judged to be defective (hereinafter, simply referred to as defective tact data). While transmitting this to the host computer 10 by the transmission / reception processing unit 26,
It is stored in the ring buffer B24. The transmitted bad tact data is stored in the tact data file 14 by the data storage processing unit 13.

As a result, the P
Since the only tact data automatically transmitted from C to the host computer 10 is the tact data determined to be defective by the PC, the data amount occupying the network 50 is smaller than that in the case of transmitting all the conventional data. Will be much less.

The functional operation of each unit will be described in detail below. First, each unit in the host computer will be described.

The boundary value setting processing unit 11 creates a set value input from an input device such as a keyboard (not shown) as a boundary value table 12. The items set in the boundary value table 12 are, for example, P as shown in FIG.
It consists of the C number (PCNo), the device name (abbreviation) of the production machine controlled by the PC, the boundary value, and the storage amount that determines how many data before and after the defective tact data is stored in the PC. .

Among these setting items, the PC number and the device name are unique to the PC and the production machine that send the boundary values, so those numbers and names are input or automatically generated and set. It The boundary value is a criterion for judging whether the tact data is good or bad. Here, since the time required for one tact (tact time) is collected as the tact data, the criterion is set for each set production machine. Time is set. In addition, in the case of illustration, PC1
Is set to 10 seconds for the robot WT001 controlled by. In addition, the storage amount is the number of data before and after the defective data stored in the PC together with the defective data as described above, and at least how many times when a defect occurs, it is possible to estimate the cause of the defect by looking at the data before and after that. It is useful or can be arbitrarily determined in consideration of the storage capacity of the ring buffer B for storing the defective tact data in the PC. In the case shown in the figure, in the PC 1, it is set to 5 data before and after the defective tact data (a total of 11 data including the defective tact data).

The data storage processing unit 13 performs processing for storing the data received from the PC as the tact data file 14, and separates the data transmitted from a plurality of PCs from the contents of the data described later. , Tact data file 14. The tact data file 14 is stored in an external storage device such as a hard disk, or may be stored in a portable storage medium such as a hard disk, a floppy disk, an optical disk or the like for long-term storage if necessary. .

The data request processing unit 15 sets a request when the administrator arbitrarily collects tact data required for production management from the PC, and sends it to the PC via the transmission / reception processing unit 17. Is. Here, as the data request, by specifying a serial number described later from an input device such as a keyboard or a touch panel (not shown), the serial number is transmitted to the PC and is defined in the defective tact data and the storage amount before and after it. Only a large amount of data or the data itself of the designated serial number is collected. The tact data collected from the PC is stored in the tact data file 14 by the data storage processing unit 13 as described above.

The search processing unit 16 performs a search process when necessary data is retrieved from the tact data file 14 for management of the production line, and, for example, serializes the necessary data from an input device (not shown). By inputting No or a device name of a PC or a production machine which seems to be defective, the tact data file 14 is searched and the data is output to an output device such as a display or a printer (not shown).

The transmission / reception processing unit 17 receives the signal of the tact data from the PC through the network 50 and transmits the data request and the signal of the boundary value table to the PC. Therefore, the data and the signal are transmitted in the communication format of the network 50. And output to the network 50.

Next, each part in the PC will be described.

In the case of manual work on a robot, a machine tool or a work stage, the data judgment processing unit 21 receives tact data from the production machine 100 such as a switch for instructing the start and end of the work, The received tact data is attached to the ring buffer A23 in chronological order by attaching serial numbers in the order in which they were received, and the boundary value setting table 22 described later is referenced to judge whether the received tact data is good or bad from the boundary value. . Then, the tact data determined to be defective is transmitted to the host computer 10 by the transmission / reception processing unit 26, and the defective tact data and the amount of tact data defined by the storage amount before and after the defective tact data are written in the ring buffer B24. In addition, as tact data received (or detected) from the production machine,
Here, data such as a line name, a stage name, a robot name, a work identification number, a work destination name, a tact start time, a tact end time, and a tact time are collected together.

The data transmitted to the host computer 10 includes defective tact data, the device name of the production machine in which the defective tact data is generated, and the PC No. of the sending machine.

The boundary value setting table 22 stores the boundary value and the storage amount transmitted from the host computer 10 to each PC, and some PCs control a plurality of production machines. In this case, the boundary value and the storage amount are stored for each device name. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the boundary value table 12 stores a boundary value for determining whether the data is good or bad, here 10 seconds, and how many data before and after the bad tact data is generated. The storage amount that defines
I have data. Then, this boundary value is used by the data determination processing unit 21 when determining the tact data. FIG. 3 shows a case where the device name is also stored. In addition,
Here, the boundary value and the like are transmitted and set from the host computer, but the boundary value and the storage amount may be set independently for each PC.

The ring buffer A23 receives from the production machine 100, for example, as shown in FIG.
The tact data with the serial number is stored and saved. And in this ring buffer A23,
According to the storage capacity, tact data is sequentially stored and old data is deleted.

The ring buffer B24 stores tact data determined to be defective by the data determination processing unit 11 and tact data defined by the storage amount before and after the tact data.

The stored data is, as shown in FIG. 5, the tact data before and after being defined by the serial number of the defective tact data and the storage amount including the defective tact data. The data before and after that are stored together so that they can be searched as a key. Here, the data that exceeds the specified value is serial No. 25, and the storage amount setting value is 5, so the number of stored tact data is 5 data before and after centering on serial No. 25, and 11 data in total. Will be remembered. The ring buffer B24 is also stored in the order in which the defective tact data is generated, and the old data is deleted.

In response to a request from the host controller 10, the response request processing section 25 uses the designated serial No. as a key, the defective tact data and the tact data before and after it, or the tact data of any designated serial No. (good data). Ring buffer B24 for the former case)
From the above, the latter is retrieved from the ring buffer A23 and taken out, and is output.

The transmission / reception processing unit 26 transmits tact data to the host computer 10 through the network 50, receives a data request or a signal of the boundary value table, and distributes it to each unit. The above is the function of each unit.

Next, the overall operation of this monitoring device will be described with reference to the flow charts shown in FIGS.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing a flow of operations such as setting of a boundary value, transmission to a PC and storage of a boundary value setting table in the PC.

First, in the host computer 10,
The boundary value setting processing unit 11 newly updates (or creates) the boundary value table 12 (S1). And
When the boundary value table 12 is updated (or created) (S
2) The transmission / reception processing unit 17 transmits the updated boundary value table to the PC specified by the PC No of the boundary value table (S3). The data to be transmitted at this time may be only the boundary value and the storage amount for each destination PC, or may be the entire data including the PC No and the device name. In the former case, there is an advantage that the amount of transmitted data is small, while in the latter case,
It becomes possible to judge whether the data received by each PC is addressed to itself. Therefore, it may be appropriately selected in consideration of the capacity of the network and the overall configuration.

Next, the transmission / reception processing unit 26 in the PC receives the boundary value table (S4) and updates (or creates) the boundary value setting table (S5). This updates (or creates) the tact data determination standard and the storage amount in the PC.

FIG. 7 shows the production machine 100 in the PC.
3 is a flow chart showing a flow of operations such as reception of tact data from the device, determination of good / bad, transmission and storage of bad tact data.

First, the PC is started and the number of data n and the variable m are initialized (S11). Here, the data number n is directly added to each tact data as a serial number. The variable m is a variable used when counting the storage amount of the ring buffer B24, and here, "0-storage amount setting value" is entered as an initial value.

Next, the tact data is received from the production machine 100 (S12), and n is incremented (S1).
3). Then, n number is added to the received tact data as a serial No and stored in the ring buffer A23 (S14).

Then, it is judged whether or not the received tact data exceeds the boundary value (S15), and if it exceeds, the n number is stored in the variable m (S17), and the defective tact data is stored in the host computer. 10 (S1
8) Then, the defective tact data is extracted from the ring buffer A23 by the amount of data previously specified by the storage amount and stored in the ring buffer B24 (S19).
Then, the defective tact data is transferred to the ring buffer B24.
(S20). At this time, the number n is stored as the serial number of the defective tact data.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S15 that the boundary value is not exceeded, it is determined whether "nm" is less than or equal to the storage amount set value (S16). If "n-m" is equal to or smaller than the storage amount set value, the tact data is stored in the ring buffer B24. This process is repeated until the storage amount specified value is exceeded, and if the storage amount specified value is exceeded, the process directly returns to the data receiving process of step S12.

In step S11, the initial value of the variable m is set to "0-storage amount set value", that is, when the number of received tact data is less than the storage amount specified value, the tact data is stored in the ring buffer B. This is to prevent it from being stored in. It should be noted that this is only for counting the number of data after the occurrence of defective tact data using such a variable m, and for counting the number of data to be stored in the ring buffer B without using such a variable. May be.

As a result, when the defective tact data is generated, only the defective tact data is automatically transmitted to the host computer 10, and at the same time, the data amount defined by the storage amount before and after the defective tact data is stored in the PC. Remembered.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart showing the flow of the operation when arbitrarily collecting tact data from the host computer 10.

First, in the host computer 10, the requesting PC No. and the requesting serial No. are specified by the data request processing unit 15 (S31), and the requesting serial No. is transmitted to the specified PC (S32).

Next, in the PC which has received the requested serial number (S33), the request response processing section 25 first searches the ring buffer B24 with the serial number as a key (S34). If the requested serial number is present in the ring buffer B24 (S35), the data collected by the serial number, that is, the tact data around the defective tact data, before and after the defective tact data, is stored in the host computer. 10 (S36).

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S35 that the requested serial number is not in the ring buffer B24, the requested serial number is in the ring buffer A23.
Is used as a key to send the tact data of the serial number to the host computer 10 (S37).

Thus, the defective tact data and the tact data before and after it or the normal tact data are automatically transmitted according to the arbitrarily requested serial number of the tact data.

As described above, in the monitoring device to which the present invention is applied, since the data automatically transmitted from the PC to the host computer 10 via the network 50 is only the data judged to be defective by the PC, the network 50 is not used. The amount of data to be occupied is significantly smaller than that of the conventional method of transmitting all data, and when searching for transmitted data as well, it is searched based on bad tact data. Less time,
It is possible to take prompt and appropriate action. further,
By storing the defective tact data and the data before and after the defective tact data in the PC, the data can be transmitted according to a request from the host computer 10 when necessary, so that it is possible to easily grasp the history when a defect occurs. is there.

[0050]

The present invention described above has the following effects for each claim.

According to the present invention as set forth in claim 1, since only the data determined to be defective in the lower control device is transmitted to the control device, compared to the conventional case of transmitting all data, the network Since the amount of data that occupies is significantly reduced, the line capacity of the network can be reduced and an economical device configuration can be constructed. When searching the sent data as well, it searches based on the data judged to be defective,
The search time is short, and it is possible to respond promptly and appropriately.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the lower control device sets a criterion for judging whether the data is good or bad in the upper control device, and transmits this to the lower control device for storage. As a result, it is possible to save the trouble of setting judgment criteria for each of a plurality of lower-level control devices, and centrally manage and set the judgment standards according to the work content of the production machine controlled by the lower-level control devices. Becomes

According to the present invention as set forth in claim 3, since the data judged to be defective is stored in the lower controller, the data judged to be defective is sent regardless of the transmission to the upper controller. You can take it out.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, since the data indicating the state of the production machine is stored in the lower control device, necessary data can be taken out regardless of whether the data is good or bad. .

According to the present invention of claim 5, the data indicating the state of the production machine is stored in time series, and the data judged to be defective are stored together with at least one data before and after the data. When a defect occurs, it is possible to retrieve the data before and after it, focusing on the data that is determined to be defective, so it is possible to efficiently search for the data when looking at the history of production machines. You can

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining a configuration of a monitoring device to which the present invention has been applied.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a boundary value table used in the above apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a boundary value setting table used in the above apparatus.

FIG. 4 is a view for explaining a ring buffer A used in the above device.

FIG. 5 is a view for explaining a ring buffer B used in the above device.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining a boundary value setting and transmission operation of the device.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of receiving, determining, and transmitting tact data of the above device.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of requesting and transmitting tact data of the device.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram for explaining a configuration of a production line.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Programmable controller (PC), 10 ... Host computer, 11 ... Boundary value setting processing part, 12 ... Boundary value setting table, 21 ... Boundary value judgment processing part, 22 ... Boundary value setting table, 23 ... Ring buffer A, 24 … Ring buffer B 100… Production machine.

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A low-order control device for controlling a production machine, and a high-order control device in which the low-order control device is connected by a plurality of networks. The high-order control device controls the operating state of the production machine from the low-order control device. In the monitoring device for collecting the data shown, in the lower-level control device, a data receiving means for receiving data showing an operating state from the production machine, and a judging means for judging whether the data received by the data receiving means is good or bad. A judgment criterion storing means for storing judgment criteria used by the judging means for judging whether the data is good or bad; and a data transmitting means for transmitting the data judged to be defective by the judging means to the host controller. A monitoring device having. 2. The upper control device further comprises a judgment reference setting means for setting the judgment reference, and a transmission means for transmitting the judgment reference set by the judgment reference setting means to the lower control device. The monitoring device according to claim 1, wherein: 3. The low-order control device further includes defective data storage means for storing data determined to be defective, in the low-order control device.
The described monitoring device. 4. The at least one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the lower-level control device has a data storage unit for storing the data indicating the operation state of the production machine received by the data receiving unit. Monitoring device according to. 5. The data storage means in the lower-level control device stores the data received from the production machine side by side in time series, and the defective data storage means stores the data judged to be defective. 5. The monitoring device according to claim 3, wherein at least one data before and after the data determined to be defective is stored together from the data arranged in the time series.