The VDMA and VDW are joining forces to promote the use and dissemination of OPC UA standards throughout the mechanical engineering sector under the ‘umati’ label.

“Cross-industry and cross-technology marketing will take our customers a significant step forward,” says Dr Wilfried Schäfer, executive director of the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association). “Manufacturing companies have not only machine tools but their own individual mix of equipment, robots and systems. If all these technologies can exist in a common ecosystem that is ideal for producing plug-and-play solutions, it will save end users a lot of time and money.”
Hartmut Rauen, deputy executive director of the VDMA (German Engineering Federation), adds: “Over 30 specialist groupings in more than 17 associations are working on technology-specific interfaces, known as the ‘Companion Specifications’. This high level of collaboration forms the basis of true, open interoperability between machines and software systems, from the shop floor to the cloud. Only the VDMA has the means to unite the necessary integrative forces from the wide range of production domains.”
The mechanical and plant engineering sector adopted OPC UA as the standard for data exchange from an early stage, largely because OPC UA provides a uniform framework for machine and system interoperability. Having adopted a bottom-up approach, it became clear how important it was to have uniform definitions for basic elements for a large part of the diverse range of products in mechanical and plant engineering. The simplest example is machine identification, including features such as manufacturer, serial number,
year of manufacture and machine type.
Here, various VDMA departments – such as Electrical Drive Engineering, Plastics and Rubber Machinery, Machine Vision, Metallurgy, Robotics and Machine Tools – are currently drawing up the ‘Basic Companion Specification OPC UA for Machinery’. The first version is scheduled for publication later this year.
For further information www.vdw.de

An injection moulding specialist helped a public school in Rutland to produce thousands of pieces of PPE for frontline workers during the early days of the COVID-19 crisis.

While Oakham School was closed during lockdown, staff used 3D printers and laser cutters from the Design and Technology Department to begin making face shields. The department approached local company, Rutland Plastics, to help it boost productivity, which took the team from manufacturing just a handful, to 8000 a day.
Rutland Plastics’ technical manager Carl Martin says they were originally asked to 3D print a number of headbands for the shields, but decided it would be more cost effective to manufacture a mould tool using its VISI software package, from which the plastic product could be injection moulded.
“We received the initial design for the 3D printed product, and modified it in VISI to make it suitable for injection moulding,” he says. “Once that was completed and approved, we designed the tool in VISI using a Meusburger bolster with aluminium bolster plates.”
The design then went into the tool room and was milled on the company’s Mazak VCN 530C CNC machining centre, with tool paths created through VISI’s CAM functionality. From taking in the initial 3D design, through turning it into a mouldable product, and finalising the mould tool, took less than a week.
When the two-impression mould was set up on Rutland’s 80-tonne Engel moulding machine, both parts of the headband were formed from a medically-accredited polypropylene every 24 seconds during the production run of 25,000. To complete the full screen face masks, Oakham School arranged for the headbands to be attached to plastic visors, which were then distributed to front line NHS staff.
For further information www.visicadcam.com