CMM Downtime counter

[[Ke...]]

We are currently doing time studies to prove to the holders of shekels that we need better fixturing and more importantly, another CMM. Since we run 24/7, they want to see how frequently it is being used through all shifts.

Is there someway to activate a timer or counter in Calypso that will continuously count or keep track of the times that it is notin use or something similar that could be an official source of data for them?

Much appreciated

[[Ri...]]

We were able to get utilization charts thru Zeiss.
They collect files with a program called "eDiag" and will send you the results.
Its not exactly a service, it was more of a favor.

CMM Observer is what they want to sell you but I was unable to get data to chart CMM utilization.
One would think Zeiss would supply software that can chart CMM utilization for free, cause it might help a customer decide to purchase more. 🙄

[[Ro...]]

Do you have PCM?

I don't have a system to track Downtime, but i track runtime, and i guess subtraction could be used to convert one into the other.

Long long ago when i took my PCM class one of the projects that we did was to output "Time in seconds" of each run, and output it to a text or Excel file.
it's a very nifty bit of code that simply adds a line every run, and at midnight it creates a new file with the current date so its completely "automated" in that nobody has to do anything but to gather the files at the end of the week.

Note1 it has am issue with a program that is started and finished before & after midnight, so you may see some random entry for 85,800 seconds as your first line of the day, those need to be manually deleted.

Note2 since the time i took PCM class, there has been an addition to PCM called "Measurement Duration" which is a simple way to output time in minutes & seconds which is easier to read for most. but since i already had a system in place for several hundred programs i chose to not update the "Zeiss Time" file.

StartTime=timeInSeconds()

ElapsedTime = EndTime-StartTime
filePath = "C:\temp\"
ext = ".txt" //Change txt to csv for Excel file output
N1 =("Zeiss Time - ")
dirPath = filePath + N1 + date()+ ext

addToFile(dirPath,ElapsedTime)

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[[Ke...]]

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Hey, thanks for this bit of info and tips. It doesn't look like PCM is an option over here for us but I am still a beginner so I will have to ask our Calypso expert before I consider a different approach.

[[Ri...]]

At-the-moment, Zeiss offers two options for this; CMM-Observer and MCC.

CMM-Observer is for a single machine only. MCC is when you are tracking multiple machines on a single network. MCC also does other things as well (paperless archiving, measurement plan versioning, and on-board diagnostics).