Good news was heard from FSP’s Raisio unit last February 2021. The pilot of AIVOT – application had been successful. Just as FSP’s development director, Rauli Yrjänä, had intended. The AIVOT- application is an important factor in FSP’s ecological surface treatment strategy, and it is also a vital tool for production optimisation and analysing.
FSP’s innovation AIVOT-application works as a production tool for optimisation, controlling and reporting. In the future the application will offer technology that can be utilised also in other fields of the industry. The application is FSP’s response for the demand of more environmental friendly methods
in the surface treatment business. In the future the application will focus even more on collecting data on emissions and energy consumption.
– The goal here is to offer FSP’s customers added value services, where the AIVOT-applications is the core offering, explains the man behind the invention, FSP’s Development Director, Rauli Yrjänä.
Yrjänä is currently preparing a demo version of the AIVOT-application for the Subcontracting Trade
Fair in Tampere which is taking place in the coming September 2021. The Subcontracting Trade Fair is the industry’s leading event in Finland.
– We are building a very visual demo version of the AIVOT-application. It is important that the audience understands the idea behind the application. The customers can operate the demo version, and experience first-hand the effectiveness of theapplication.
The AIVOT-application optimises production
The AIVOT-application stores data collected from the surface protection production line to cloud services. The collected data can consist of automatic recordings of surface treatment actions, the temperatures and other circumstances of the production line.
The objects that are receiving a surface treatment are carefully monitored by sensors. The sensors detect different stages of the production process, thus improving the quality of monitoring and analysing. Production analysing often consist of examining rotation times, productivity and possible bottle necks. The analysing of the production line with current real time data also improves decision making.
The AIVOT-application enables observation of temperatures in different areas of the production line. If the temperature is about to exceed the given value the application will issue a warning. The past data is easy to retrieve since everything is recorded.
FSP is not willing nor able to renounce manual labor
As the AIVOT-application collects large volumes of information, some data is still produced manually. As an example the film thickness is measured manually, and the results are added to the application.
– We are currently working on a software code
that would transfer the data of film thickness automatically to the application. Our main objective is to improve and update the application in the future. The amount of manual labor is reducing, and further automatization of the production line is our goal, says Yrjänä and continues,
– Although it is not necessary to automatize everything.
According to Yrjänä another future plan is to utilise 3-D cameras as measuring tools.
– At the moment the use of 3-D cameras as measuring appliance in our industry is not so simple. There is a lot of variation in the sizes of the objects that receive surface treatment. Therefore it is quite challenging to measure each piece accurately.
The effectiveness of the application is supported by the University of Tampere
The AIVOT-application produces real time data of the entire production process. The collected data also provides useful information when calculating the cost of the production.
– As each production phase is given a price quota, we are able to provide a much more detailed pricing for the customer. The AIVOT-application has proven to be an efficient tool for creating cost quotations.
The quality and the accuracy of data including raw data produced by AIVOT-application has been analysed at the university of Tampere.
– We decided to collaborate with the Pori Unit of Tampere University. It has been proven that the data AIVOT-application collects is accurate and efficient.
The AIVOT-application is patent pending, and the logo of the application is protected under a registered trade mark.
The AIVOT-application has something for everyone
The developing of AIVOT-application got started in the spring of 2019, when Yrjänä was working on his theses on digitalization in the surface treatment industry.
– It all got started in a very thorough research in how to utilise the digitalization in the surface treatment. In the beginning the application was designed to support the automatization of reporting systems in the surface treatment production. From there we continued to develop the AIVOT-application further.
The COVID-19 pandemic created some delay in the project. Fortunately the setbacks were somewhat minor.
– We experienced some challenges in the device definition. We learned that a successful co-operation required proper planning and regular visitations to the locations. As the delivery times for the materials needed in the project were long, it was important that the orders were placed correctly and on time. Luckily everything went according to the schedule, says Yrjänä.
The information that the AIVOT-application produces is beneficial in many different ways.
– The AIVOT-application is very versatile. It can
offer various attributes to different departments
in the organization. As an example the Production Supervisors work load will reduce significantly when the mandatory reporting is real time, fast and automated. The AIVOT-application provides the company’s Production Managers importantinformation regarding the units profitability and costs. The CEO benefits from the data produced by the application in managing the company’s overall operations. The AIVOT-application is a
very resourceful tool for reporting, analysing and optimising, Yrjänä summarises.
Regarding the future of the AIVOT-application, Yrjänä notes that the developing work is an ongoing process.
– Of course we don’t want to reveal everything just yet, but we are constantly working on developing the application, Yrjänä explains and continues,
– As the IoT continues growing we will be able to manage and synchronise our operations more efficiently. The future goal is to enable full-duplex data transmission in IoT.
