Lamp installation, also known as press lamp, dark lamp and ANDON, is a system widely used in automobile factories. When there is an abnormality in the production site, it can be timely intervened by pulling rope, buttons and other ways, and timely notified the responsible personnel through sound, light, screen and other ways to solve it.

Lighting embodies two management ideas:

1) Quality priority, at the cost of emergency stop, expose and timely solve production site problems.

2) Assembly operation is given priority. Quality engineers, equipment engineers, process engineers and logistics and distribution personnel are all auxiliary personnel, because the efficiency of the assembly line determines the overall efficiency of the factory.

The following describes the key elements of the lighting system.

Step 1 Call

According to the call type, the lamp can be divided into quality call, material call, equipment call and line body call.

Quality call refers to the call manually triggered by the worker through the pull rope or button when there is a quality problem on site or the worker is faced with an unsolvable problem. The assembly worker initiates the call, and the crew leader and quality engineer receive the call.

Material call refers to the call made by the material button when workers find material shortage. The initiator of the call is the assembly worker, and the receiver is the logistics and distribution personnel. Usually each button corresponds to a material, and calls information and logistics execution system integration.

Device call refers to the call automatically triggered by the device controller when an alarm or fault occurs on the device. The device PLC initiates the call and the device engineer receives the call.

Line body call refers to the call triggered automatically by the line body controller when the transmission line is abnormal (such as emergency stop, failure, car shortage, blockage). The initiator of the call is the line body PLC, and the receiver is the team leader and equipment engineer.

Step 2 Notify

Security lamp provides sound, light, screen and other forms of notification.

Usually we install single - or three-color column lights at the station of the production line. The monochrome lamp is usually yellow and outputs a flashing signal to notify when a call occurs. Three-color lights are usually red, yellow and green, which are often used in key stations such as error-proof stations. Green represents normal, yellow represents alarm, and red represents fault. Signal lights are usually integrated into PLCS and have response times of less than 100ms.

Due to the large number of equipment and mixed personnel in the automobile assembly workshop, and equipment engineers usually adopt the mechanism of line patrol, so the relevant personnel sometimes can not see the signal light on the station in time. Therefore, the factory will install an audio system to broadcast the announcements. In order to ensure sound quality and volume, the sound system is usually formed in the form of player + power amplifier + speaker. The player is also integrated into the PLC, the response time is within a few seconds, and the sound played can be pre-recorded into MP3.

In addition, the workshop is usually hung LCD/LED screen, in the form of text for notification. The large screen size can range from 55 "to more than 100", and can be connected to a small PC in the form of an external monitor. SCADA software, such as WINCC/FTVIEW/CIMPLICITY, can be installed on a small PC to display various forms of information, such as call status, device status, planned output, actual output, cache quantity, and workshop layout.

3. Upgrade mechanism

Calls have levels such as notification, alarm, and fault.

Notification level For example, during shift change, there is no anomaly on site during the call.

Alarm levels such as material call, equipment alarm, line body missing car, line body blocking, line body is still working when calling, line stop will not happen immediately.

Fault levels such as device fault, line fault, and line emergency stop. Handle the call immediately; otherwise, the line stops immediately.

The common drawstring call, which can be either an alarm level or a fault level, has an escalation mechanism.

For example, in welding, the call is alarm level when the rope is pulled down. If there is no response within 10 seconds, it will be upgraded to fault level.

In the final assembly, due to the transmission line, the same line of each station linkage, and each station is equidistant, so will define 70% stop, 90% stop, 100% stop for each station. Pull down the rope, if the vehicle has not reached 70% stop, then the call is an alarm level; If there is no response to the call when the vehicle reaches 70% stop, it is upgraded to fault level. When the vehicle reaches the 90% stop position, the call has not been reset and the conveyor line begins to stop.

When a call is upgraded, the sound, optical, and screen notification forms change. For example, the three-color light flashes yellow when alarming and red when failing.

4. Line stop management

In the assembly shop, each station is related to each other due to the form of conveying line.

Therefore, if the call of a station can not be handled in time, the business will require to stop the whole production line, which requires the integration between the lighting system and the conveyor line PLC.

Usually, the lighting system will transmit the stop line instruction and 0%/70%/90% stop signal to the conveyor line PLC.

The lamp system has a special PLC, and the transmission line PLC through the form of network coupler or hard wiring communication.

After receiving the signal from the PLC of the conveyor line, it will combine the status signal of the line body and the safety signal to determine whether the line body should be stopped at a certain time. If the conditions are in line, the stop logic will be executed.

5. Shift management

Usually we assign shifts in the lighting system for management, even if there is only one shift.

This is because each shift has a number of key metrics, such as planned production, actual production, line downtime, call time, etc. that are assigned to the shift and must be zeroed out at the beginning of each shift. And many indicators are collected from the line PLC, so the lighting system must output the shift signal to the line PLC.

In addition, the lighting system can also alert workers and production management by flashing column lights and playing music when the shift is changed.