JPH10156910A - Production control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a production control system which can be easily expanded and can take measure to changes easily. SOLUTION: A production control system comprises a plurality of injection molding machines and a plurality of terminals (3-1)-(3-n) for controlling respective injection molding machines, wherein the terminals are connected to a host computer 1 through a network server 2. The network server has storing areas of production plan files (7-1)-(7-n) and production monitor files (8-1)-(8-n) exclusive to respective terminals. Referring to these files, the host computer controls the injection molding machines through the terminals. As these storage areas are allotted as virtual drives belonging to the terminals, load of the host computer reduces, failure of the host side, changes of machine type and OS, and version-up of software can be flexibly managed, and response speed and resources efficiency can be improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a production management system, and more particularly to reducing the man-hour required for development and maintenance when constructing a management system for an injection molding machine factory using a personal computer as a host computer. It can be.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent production sites, computer control has become indispensable due to the complexity of controlled devices and the pursuit of high efficiency, and the development of high-speed operation and highly reliable systems has become an issue. ing.

[0003] As a conventional system construction method, the following method is used.

First, in a first method, a single personal computer serving as a host computer is operated under the control of a multitask OS, and a production monitoring task and a task controlling a man-machine interface (MMI) are simultaneously executed. Is to build a system. In this case, in the production monitoring task processing, the host computer compares the monitoring information sent from each terminal with the content of the production planning file held by the host computer itself, grasps the overall production status, and makes necessary plan corrections. Do. Also, MM
In the I task, the host computer controls all necessary information exchanges with each terminal.

In the second technique, a system is constructed based on one-to-one communication using a plurality of field terminal computers for monitoring production and a host computer for controlling the MMI.

[0006]

However, according to the first method, since the operation depends on the OS, when the target computer is changed, most of the software is rewritten, and the hardware is installed in the computer. When the above trouble occurs, there is a problem that the entire system becomes unusable and recovery is very difficult.

In the case where the on-site terminal and the host computer are connected by communication as in the second method, since the operating characteristics depend on the communication, most of the software is re-created when the communication means is changed. In addition, the host computer must support all complicated communication functions, and the communication process becomes complicated. Further, there is a problem that it is difficult to cope with an overload due to an increase in the number of units to be managed.

[0008] The present invention has been made in view of the above points,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a production management system that can easily deal with system expansion and changes.

[0009]

According to the present invention, a plurality of injection molding machines, a plurality of terminals for controlling the injection molding machines, respectively, and the plurality of terminals are connected to a host computer via a network server. In the production management system connected to the above, the network server has a storage area for a production plan file and a production monitoring file dedicated to each terminal, and the host computer refers to these files and communicates with the injection molding machine through each terminal. Is controlled.

[0010] The storage area for the production plan file and the production monitoring file dedicated to each terminal is allocated as a virtual drive attached to each terminal.

According to the present invention, a production management file is placed on a network server, and a field terminal or a host personal computer accesses the file and performs a production management operation using this file information. And
When using a production management file, access is made as a file on a virtual drive without using any environment-dependent functions such as system calls. For this reason, the program of each node can perform input / output with respect to the production management file without being aware of other nodes.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Some embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing a configuration of a production management system according to the present invention.

A host computer 1, a network server 2, and a plurality of field terminals 3 are connected by a network 5 such as Ethernet. n on-site terminals 3-
Injection molding machines 4-1 to 4-n are R for 1-3-n respectively.
It is connected by an interface 6 such as S232C or PIO, and a single host computer controls a plurality of injection molding machines. As the host computer used here, a personal computer can be used.

In this system, as shown in FIG. 2, production plan files 7-1 to -7 provided in the network server 2 in correspondence with the site terminals 3-1 to 3-n, respectively.
-N and the production monitoring files 8-1 to 8-n. For example, a fixed capacity storage area is secured on the hard disk, and each site terminal can access only the area allocated to the terminal, and the host computer exchanges data. Simultaneous writing / reading of a plurality of files is prevented by making it possible to access only the storage area for the site terminal to be performed. That is, one node is permitted to output one file.

Therefore, the production plan files 7-1 to 7-n and the production monitoring file 8 in the network server
-1 to 8-n are treated as n virtual drives.

Next, the flow of information between the host computer and the site terminal in this system will be described with reference to FIGS.

The site terminal 3 monitors the production status of the injection molding machine 4 connected thereto via the interface 6, and stores the production monitoring result information PR1 to PRn in the corresponding production monitoring files 8-1 to 8-1 in the network server. 8-n
To be stored.

The host computer operates the production monitoring file 8-1 in the network server at any time or periodically.
-8-n, and the production monitoring result information P
R1 to PRn are displayed individually or in a list on a display (not shown) to transmit the production status to the operator. In accordance with the displayed contents, the operator makes a plan for achieving the production plan and corrects the production plan using the host computer. The host computer stores production plan instruction information PP1 to PPn for an arbitrary injection molding machine in a production plan file 7-1 to 7- corresponding to the injection molding machine.
Output to n in the form of a file output. The writing at this time is performed only for the corresponding file as described above.

The site terminals 3-1 to 3-n refer to the production plan files 7-1 to 7-n at any time and perform production based on the designated production plan instruction information PP1 to PPn.
The production result is displayed as production monitoring result information PR1 to PRn.
Is written again into the production monitoring files 8-1 to 8-n.

In such a system, the file related to each site terminal is secured as a virtual drive on the network server, so that the host computer does not need to communicate with each site terminal. This eliminates the need for protocol and timing adjustment, thereby reducing the load on the host computer.

In addition, it is possible to flexibly cope with a failure of the host computer, a change of the model, a change of the OS, and the like, without being affected by the type and structure of the network, thereby improving the resource efficiency.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, a file related to each site terminal is secured as a virtual drive on the network server, and the host computer does not perform direct communication. The burden is reduced, and it is possible to flexibly cope with a failure on the host side, a change in model or OS, an upgrade of software, and the like, and it is possible to improve a response speed and resource efficiency.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing a configuration of a production management system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing a production plan file, a production monitoring file, and an access status provided in the network server corresponding to each site terminal in FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Host computer 2 Network server 3-1-3-n Site terminal 4-1-4-n Injection molding machine 5 Network 6 Interface 7-1-7-n Production plan file 8-1-1-8-n Production monitoring file

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A production management system comprising: a plurality of injection molding machines; a plurality of terminals for controlling the injection molding machines; and a plurality of terminals connected to a host computer via a network server. The server has a storage area for a production plan file and a production monitoring file dedicated to each terminal, and the host computer controls the injection molding machine through each terminal by referring to these files. system. 2. The production management system according to claim 1, wherein the storage areas for the production planning file and the production monitoring file dedicated to each terminal are allocated as virtual drives attached to each terminal.