Aluminum Production Software (APS)
What is APS?
APS(Aluminium Production Software) is a software system that is responsible for the supervision and control of the entire aluminum production management process in extrusion plants.
Our APS system provides information on the company’ s entire production line (bar stock, bar oven, press, pullers, outfeed table, cold cutting saw, profile trolleys, maturing oven, anodizing, lacquering, packaging, etc.).
The system is responsible for reading customer sales orders from the company’s ERP, launching the necessary manufacturing orders, and controlling and managing the production of that order in each of the plant’s machines. Indicating to the operator in each production phase the optimal manufacturing parameters, so that they can be automatically loaded to the PLCs.
Our modules are capable of increasing the extrusion speed of the customer’s main dies by 20%. The system is able to reduce the scrap of the extrusion process by 10-14% with respect to the raw extruded kilograms.
APS controls the entire manufacturing process from bar loader to profile packaging. The complete process is shown below, although it is not strictly necessary to implement all functionality for the system to work.
Extrusion press control
Main screen
The main screen showing schematically the position of the pullers as well as the most important production parameters:
- The current manufacturing lot, die and cutter bar length.
- The billets to be extruded and the extrudates in progress with respect to the batch and the matrix (in case of concatenating batches of the same matrix).
- Length of bars in the furnace, length of billet set and actual, length of profile set and actual, length of cullet set and actual.
- Optimum billet to be cut for the next extrusion and possibility to send it to the setpoint automatically.
- Real-time extruded profile weight.
- Next batch to be extruded according to the Production Plan.
Optimization with APS
The system includes a scrap saving optimization module . It calculates the optimum billet and profile length for that batch (up to 3 different billet lengths are considered for splices), respecting the maximum length of extruded profile allowed and the maximum billet length for that die, taking into account the length of the cut bar, the blanks and the length of the butt.
It also determines if it is better to perform billet splicing to optimize production.
Taking into account the bars ordered by the customer, the necessary billets to be extruded to complete the quantity ordered are calculated.
Recipes
The recipe of optimal extrusion parameters is saved for each die. The capture of these parameters can be done automatically or manually (by pressing a button).
In the same way the sending of these parameters to the PLCs can be automated at the beginning of the extrusion of the 2nd billet or manually by pressing the button.
Tracking
It allows the reading of the bars entering the loader. Being able to determine if the alloys loaded do not correspond to the next batches to be extruded and warn about it.
It also allows tracking of alloy, casting and supplier billet by billet.
APS data analysis
The APS analysis module allows you to know your entire extrusion process in depth. Knowing the chronology of events that have occurred, identified by colors.
Production summaries are also provided for different time ranges.
All reports and statistics offered are displayed in an elegant and dynamic style. They can also be published on the web, to offer them to different personnel of the corporation.
Daily production report with APS
Allows to know the summary and detail of the production between two selected dates or of a particular day.
Dynamic web statistics
- It allows to know visually the production ratios. Allowing its publication on the web.
- Extrusion data is stored billet by billet, and you can retrieve your extrusion graph at any time.
- Detailed data per billet can be exported to Excel.
Automatic OEE calculation
The system automatically calculates the OEE of the production process.
Comparison between the different presses.
APS is the best extrusion management system, from which practically the entire aluminum extrusion process is managed.
Tooling management
Temperature management
Production follow-up
Maintenance
Comprehensive data analysis
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