SEAT S.A. has introduced a pioneering new digital system in its Martorell factory to become a more efficient, smarter, and connected factory than ever. In a joint collaboration with the Production area and SEAT S.A.’s software development centre, SEAT:CODE, the Martorell factory has made continued developments to its digital capabilities and can now foresee possible incidents in robots in its production line.
SEAT:CODE & the Production team created a predictive maintenance system for robots.
The use case consists of a predictive maintenance solution for the welding grippers of specific robots. Using the information generated by these robots, it is possible to process and analyse the data from the grippers and implement algorithms to predict when they might fail depending on the behaviour of these variables. By utilising this information, SEAT S.A.’s main production plant is able to avoid possible interruptions in production and increasing overall efficiency and productivity.
Herbert Steiner, Vice-President for Production and Logistics at SEAT S.A., emphasised that, “The Martorell factory is immersed in a process of digital transformation innovating with cutting-edge technology solutions in the automotive sector. Thanks to this new predictive maintenance system, we have taken another step forward in the roll out of our Smart Factory concept, which will bring further potential in terms of productivity”.
Helping to detect incidents, avoid production interruptions and increase efficiency.
SEAT S.A. is committed to the cloud through the Digital Production Platform (DPP), Volkswagen´s Industrial Cloud created together with Amazon Web Services, which integrates the different factories of the Volkswagen Group. This platform uses the technology and services of Amazon Web Services, a leader in the industrial cloud industry, and provides significant technological capabilities and innovative cloud technologies in the production environment, especially in the areas of logistics and supply chain.
Carlos Buenosvinos, CEO of SEAT:CODE, pointed out that, “It is thanks to the algorithm developed, that we have the ability to detect possible incidents, thus anticipating a future problem days before it occurs. This allows us to analyse our processes even better and therefore be more productive, as well as setting a strong platform for future innovation”.
A cloud-based industrial ecosystem
Martorell is now part of the Volkswagen Group’s wider Digital Production Platform.
The DPP is a global industrial platform with different use cases that connects the Volkswagen Group's factories by digitising all their manufacturing and logistics processes. The platform enables the collection and synchronisation of data from machines and systems in all plants in real time and also provides new insights into production processes. In this way, it is possible to create new perspectives for process optimisation in production and significant productivity improvements in the plants.
As it is integrated in the cloud, the use case developed by SEAT S.A. can also be extended and applied to other Volkswagen Group plants.
