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2024 Firebrand Award Winner
NeoMatrix
Project For: Lucid Motors
Ignition Optimizes Processes For EV Manufacturer Through Real-Time Production Monitoring
Project Summary:
Lucid Motors implemented the Lucid Manufacturing Information System (Lucid MIS), a real-time factory information system that provides data on manufacturing performance. The first project focused on creating an Andon Board with a modular architecture for future expansion and integration, including standard PLC interface (AOI) and a scalable production model. The second project involved developing Lucid MIS, enabling real-time production monitoring, historical reports, vertical integration with upper- and lower-level systems, and online user help for ease of use. With Lucid MIS, Lucid Motors can make data-driven decisions, optimize manufacturing processes, and improve overall operational performance.
Problem:
Lucid Motors relied on multiple business applications, including SAP for ERP, Rockwell MES, as well as Ignition and Rockwell for HMIs. However, they faced the challenge of aggregating all production and equipment performance data in a single place, and they required a solution that could be developed in a quick and agile manner.
Solution:
At the heart of Lucid Motors’ standard platform lies Ignition, a vital component of Lucid Motors’ Manufacturing Systems. This platform proved to be a crucial solution in addressing the challenges faced by the Lucid MIS project by providing:
Scalable Solution – The scale-out architecture implemented in Ignition proved to be a crucial solution in addressing the challenges faced by the Lucid MIS project. By splitting the workload between tag Gateways that handled device data & MES event recording and analysis, and Perspective Gateways for managing client applications, the system was able to scale easily without overloading any single Gateway. This allowed the backend to accommodate additional equipment seamlessly, without compromising performance or stability. Additionally, the architecture facilitated support for multiple users on the frontend, ensuring that the system could handle increasing data volumes and user demands as manufacturing operations grew. Using a load balancer in front of the Perspective Gateways allows for seamless user load growth.
Data Source Integration – Ignition solves this problem by providing comprehensive support for multiple data sources out of the box, including OPC UA, SQL databases, RESTful web services, and operator input through HTML5-based forms.
To address the challenge of data cleansing, transformation, and modeling in the Lucid MIS project, NeoMatrix utilized Python scripting in combination with Ignition's powerful features such as User-Defined Types (UDTs) and Parameterized Views. Python scripting provided a flexible and versatile solution for data transformation, allowing NeoMatrix to manipulate and tweak datasets to ensure consistency and accuracy of the data. NeoMatrix leveraged Ignition's UDTs to model the data in a structured and standardized manner, enabling them to create a standardized data model that could accommodate dissimilar data sets and ensure consistency across different manufacturing operations. Ignition's Parameterized Views allowed NeoMatrix to create dynamic displays that could be easily customized and reused for over 1,000 elements within the production model. This streamlined the process of building displays for different assets, reducing the development effort and ensuring consistent data presentation across the system.
To ensure robust security in the Lucid MIS project, NeoMatrix integrated Lucid's third-party identity provider, leveraging Ignition's out-of-the-box support for external authentication providers. This integration allowed NeoMatrix to implement a secure and centralized authentication system for user access control. Ignition's seamless integration with Lucid's identity provider enabled NeoMatrix to leverage the identity provider’s advanced security features, such as multi-factor authentication and user role management, to enhance the security of the Lucid MIS system.
Ignition allows multiple developers to work concurrently on different aspects of a project, enabling parallel development without conflicts. A development Gateway in Ignition provides a separate environment for development, allowing developers to work independently and safely without affecting the production system. Git, a popular version control system, can be integrated with Ignition to manage changes and track revisions, enabling seamless collaboration among developers, versioning of projects, and easy rollback in case of issues. This combination of Ignition's multi-developer support, development Gateway, and Git for version control ensures smooth coordination among multiple developers, prevents conflicts, and enables efficient and organized code development.
The Scrum project methodology can effectively address the challenges of remote project support by providing a structured and iterative framework for project management that emphasizes communication, collaboration, and adaptability. Through iterative sprint planning and review sessions and effective collaboration tools, the project team was able to develop the project in a timely manner despite the challenges of remote work.
Results:
Lucid realized a number of benefits from the Lucid MIS project. Lucid Motors and NeoMatrix collaborated to deliver a unified platform built on Ignition that consolidated data from various sources, allowing for real-time visibility to all critical information needed for decision-making. This eliminated the need to manually gather data from multiple systems, reducing the time and effort required to access relevant information. Ignition's production model supports horizontal and vertical expansion, and Lucid quickly added new functionality with Lucid MIS. The following is a summary of some of the information Lucid now has at their fingertips as a result of the project:
- Line status overviews give a real-time view of the status of production lines, enabling prompt action to address any issues or bottlenecks and minimize production disruptions.
- Real-time OEE monitoring provided by the Sepasoft OEE Downtime Module identifies areas for improvement and allows for the implementation of corrective measures to optimize production performance.
- First time through helped in identifying any quality issues early in the production process, allowing for timely corrective actions and reducing scrap or rework.
- Monitoring and trending of JPH or cycle time, providing insights into the productivity and efficiency of the production process over time.
- A production loss editor allowed for documenting reasons for not achieving production targets, categorizing them into machine, man, material, or method-related issues. This helped in identifying root causes of production losses, implementing corrective actions, and continuously improving production processes.
- Open and closed defects for each vehicle by line: Ignition and NeoMatrix provided detailed information on defects for each vehicle by line, allowing for effective defect tracking, analysis, and resolution. This helped in identifying patterns or trends in defects, implementing corrective measures, and improving overall product quality.
- Visualization of the state of charge and location of all cars on the site.
Start Date: September 2020
Deploy Date: November 2023
Project Scope:
Tags: 910k over 8 tag Gateways
Screens: About 300 over all projects; most are parameterized to produce thousands of unique screens
Clients: 752 using 5 Perspective Gateways
Alarms: About 5k with plans to increase
Devices used: 139 over 8 tag Gateways
Architectures used: Scale-out with redundancy on tag Gateways and Perspective behind load balancers
Databases used: 27 all MSSQL
Historical data logged: About 100k plus Sepasoft MES tags
Presented By:
Chris VanRemoortel
Chris has been involved in the manufacturing industry for over 30 years. Prior to joining NeoMatrix, Chris worked in the plastic extrusion industry and has been involved in maintenance operations, process engineering, production management, and equipment engineering. His work has focused on process automation, ERP/manufacturing integration, and HMI/SCADA development. In 2016, Chris won a Firebrand Award for his efforts in moving his company's entire HMI system from RSView32 to Ignition.
Created By:
NeoMatrix Inc.
NeoMatrix is a services firm focused on automation and enterprise integration for manufacturing companies. NeoMatrix starts on the plant floor by helping automate and coordinate the actions of machines and industrial equipment. They add software systems that collect data from the plant floor and enterprise business systems, enabling people to visualize, analyze, and improve their processes.
Website: neomatrixinc.com
Project For:
Lucid Motors
Lucid Motors is an American manufacturer of luxury electric vehicles (EVs) headquartered in California. Founded in 2007, they focus on developing efficient EVs with exceptional range and performance. Their in-house technology and innovative design aim to push boundaries in electric vehicle development. Their battery and drive technology as well as build quality distinguishes them from other EV manufacturers. Their primary manufacturing facility (called AMP-1) is located in Casa Grande, AZ, with additional facilities (AMP-2) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Website:lucidmotors.com
Industry:
Automotive