What Would You Build with the Pocket IO™︎ Development Platform?

If I have one of these in my hand I recall my memories... It was the mid of '80s and I was an active member of the Italian Society of Ergonomics. With the collaboration of the University of Turin Dept. of Anthropology and SIE (the mentioned society) I have developed a PLC based industrial data collector. It was a non-conventional use of the AEG PLC (one of the most advanced in that period). The project was developed to the "Carmencita Lavazza" coffee machine production plant near Turin (Design Paradiso, la fabbrica del linguaggio presente - Lavazza ) Every working machine has been equipped with a PLC collecting information on the worker: working time, stress calculation, number of pieces etc. All these information was collected by every work area PLC and send to a 386 graphic PC using a RS242 network with a multi-serial card on the PC. The information collected from every work area was integrated real-time with the stress indicators accordingly with the industrial work area optimisation principle as described in the sacred-text by GrandJean Fitting task to the human that I own in my library.

Starting from a initial pause and work cycle based only on the production needs, the worker detected stress level was progressively updating the initial machines work-area parameters and the new work-pause cycles was automated dynamically to adapt to every single worker to optimise their working conditions reducing the stress.

As a result the global productivity has not been influenced during the daily cycle but the redistribution of the work timings contributed to define a more comfortable working environment.

It will be very interesting to replicate this approach with a modern view and a better and faster hardware, optimised data flow and a more accurate sampling analysis. The availability of this device with a wide set of differentiated I/O ports and the possibility to communicate via BLE and WiFi seems the optimal PLC device for fast and easy customisation on different kind of work-areas.

If I have one of these in my hand I recall my memories... It was the mid of '80s and I was an active member of the Italian Society of Ergonomics. With the collaboration of the University of Turin Dept. of Anthropology and SIE (the mentioned society) I have developed a PLC based industrial data collector. It was a non-conventional use of the AEG PLC (one of the most advanced in that period). The project was developed to the "Carmencita Lavazza" coffee machine production plant near Turin (Design Paradiso, la fabbrica del linguaggio presente - Lavazza ) Every working machine has been equipped with a PLC collecting information on the worker: working time, stress calculation, number of pieces etc. All these information was collected by every work area PLC and send to a 386 graphic PC using a RS242 network with a multi-serial card on the PC. The information collected from every work area was integrated real-time with the stress indicators accordingly with the industrial work area optimisation principle as described in the sacred-text by GrandJean Fitting task to the human that I own in my library.

Starting from a initial pause and work cycle based only on the production needs, the worker detected stress level was progressively updating the initial machines work-area parameters and the new work-pause cycles was automated dynamically to adapt to every single worker to optimise their working conditions reducing the stress.

As a result the global productivity has not been influenced during the daily cycle but the redistribution of the work timings contributed to define a more comfortable working environment.

It will be very interesting to replicate this approach with a modern view and a better and faster hardware, optimised data flow and a more accurate sampling analysis. The availability of this device with a wide set of differentiated I/O ports and the possibility to communicate via BLE and WiFi seems the optimal PLC device for fast and easy customisation on different kind of work-areas.

Enrico,

I had a conversation with the supplier. And, yes, you are right,. They are keen on using it for "fast and easy customisation on different kind of work-areas." They termed it adaptive process control or manufacturing.

Rnadall

Thank you Randall,

to be honest I also though to a couple of different manufacturing projects at least with one of these in the hand. At the date I live in Denia where there are lot of small semi-artisan woodworking laboratories; I mean 2-5 employees factories (most of them are brothers of families working together). They have an average technological tools (lathes, several kind of automatic refining instruments, circular and band sews etc.) All these machines are almost interesting because are not the last generation super computerised ones but big and heavy; not so difficult to add small intervention for data collection and every one of these can se identified as a specific work area. Considering this scenario it is interesting to select one of these machines as a "test work area" to setup a good data collection environment. Just using the BLE also the communications with a smartphone for data post processing it is not the most complex ting in the world and an experimental project is more than feasable.

Enrico

I am curious to see what can be the next step. And curious too about the pricing. Can you give some anticipation?

This product seems fit perfectly in a STEM project seminary I am considering to start, if you are interested we can discuss in depth.

Enrico

Enrico,

I'm getting ready to contact the supplier to see about their interest in sponsoring a project. I'll add your ideas. I believe the product is in product and available.

Randall