“Is your production floor running as it should? StateMonitor knows the answer.”

Digitalization, Mr. Voit, is becoming increasingly important. What role is StateMonitor playing in this?

StateMonitor allows our customers to digitalize their machines quickly and easily. The software shows them the status of their machines, including production statistics and real-time notifications. This can be done from anywhere, even offsite, on a smartphone, tablet, or PC. Customers can also visualize and evaluate real production data. The ease with which this can be done introduces a completely new dynamic to the field of machine data acquisition. Armed with this data, our customers can analyze the process to determine, for example, whether investing in a machine will pay off.

How does this work in practice? What benefits are there for customers?

StateMonitor helps our customers get ready for the future. Being better and more rapidly informed about the current machine status allows them to react quickly to events such as low coolant levels or machine downtime. It’s even possible to comment on the cause of an interruption, such as setup or programming work. StateMonitor also provides insight into upcoming maintenance, allowing timely interventions for productivity increases of up to ten percent, as experience has shown. And because the system also brings transparency to otherwise opaque processes, there is significant potential for optimization.

That sounds very promising. But how much work is it for customers to integrate StateMonitor into their systems?

From the very beginning, our approach has been to offer a plug-and-play product. If a machine is equipped with a HEIDENHAIN control, and if it is connected to the network through the HEIDENHAIN DNC software interface, then StateMonitor can be ready for operation within three minutes.

What’s coming up next?

Our goal is to continue developing powerful products for the monitoring and management of production processes, from job planning, quoting, and production planning to production monitoring, quality control, and shipping. With StateMonitor Version 1.4.0, we’ve managed to collect tool life-cycle data on CNC machines for the first time. Our guiding principle is always to develop what customers actually need.