Woodworking made izy
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It’s time to see the customer at the centre
History has been made, with the 7 woodworking machinery leaders coming together for the first time and teaming up to put the interest of their customers at the forefront.
Woodworking made izy is not about individual success, it is about each company’s ability to work for the greater achievement of an efficient ecosystem, whereby they each provide skills and know how, from technical, engineering to marketing, interacting for the very first time in an interconnected system for the sheer beauty of offering a solution needed by their customers.
For the 7 companies, such a ground-breaking decision to team up and put aside each individual’s competitive standpoint, was led by providing a joint solution to their customers and by vastly improving manufacturing processes.
For the 7 companies, such a ground-breaking decision to team up and put aside each individual’s competitive standpoint, was led by providing a joint solution to their customers and by vastly improving manufacturing processes.

Director of Systems Project Execution Edge Processing at HOMAG
Member Companies
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
IMA SCHELLING
About
Seven world leaders in woodworking machinery industry, BIESSE, BÜRKLE, HOMAG, IMA SCHELLING, SCM, WEBER AND WEINIG, have worked together as a team in defining a standardized interface to connect all their woodworking machines, machine to machine, and machines to the customers’ Manufacturing Execution Systems. This means no individual interfaces need to be programmed and an overall control of the production process is readily put in place.
The project has been named izy, inspired by universal languages, and it has solved a communication problem in an easy and streamlined way.
The momentous standardized interface is being developed specifically for the woodworking industry so as to avoid individual definitions and programming for every interface for each brand and technology.
Woodworking made izy promotes an Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture data exchange standard for machine-to-machine communication, with a dedicated language developed for the woodworking industry that connects the production data with the overall manufacturing management. The dedicated language, has been developed in cooperation with Umati (Universal Machine Technology Interface) offering customers an exceptional level of standardization.
Homag senior marketing manager

How it works

A standardized interface will connect machine to machine and machines to customers’ Manufacturing Execution Systems.
Any technology, either cutting, sizing, edgebanding, cnc machining centres, drilling, moulding up to assembling and packaging will simply be connected within the manufacturing process. In future, the same way as you connect your printer in the office world, just as easily you will connect a WEINIG automatic profiling machine to an SCM cnc machining center, and just as easily add a Bürkle surface finishing system to the process.
Once the machines have been installed, there will follow a straightforward testing of the interface together with the software developers, adjusting it to improve the level of performance.
It’s not only a matter of connecting the machines together, it’s also being able to monitor the entire production process at a glance, identifying any weak points and acting swiftly, taking decisions on the data provided by the system concerning the entire cycle.
Head of software and electrical design at BÜRKLE
Use cases
Dedicated technical teams are developing standards to ensure the entire procedure will no longer depend on variable factors related to operators or machines, making manufacturing easier, because individual interface programming will be superseded and an overall control of the production process will be set up very efficiently.
Machines from different manufacturers shall be identifiable in a standardized manner. To this end, a number of basic and static information like manufacturer name and model number are provided on the interface.

The states of machines from different manufacturers are displayed in a standardized manner.

The machine is expected to display all current messages such as alarms, warnings and information on the interface. These errors and warnings shall be mapped to OPC UA event types accordingly.

Feature which ensures all machines involved in the production process - whether wood or metal working, tooling machines, dust extraction systems or robots, of different brands and technologies - will be harmonised. The Job Management standard will audit runtimes, technologies, parts, materials and handling required in the process.

One protocol

Machinery producers have free access to technical documents and rights in using the interface promoted by BIESSE, BÜRKLE, HOMAG, IMA SCHELLING, SCM, WEBER and WEINIG, the founder members of Woodworking made izy. The project is open and aims at connecting machines to machines and to the MES by using the OPC UA Unified Architecture and the companion specification. If you would like to become an Affiliated Partner and wish to download the file of the companion specification, this is your link https://bit.ly/3R8QHvJ"

Benefits
Innovation Manager BORM-INFORMATIK

Without this new standardized interface, connecting each machine to the manufacturing flow would require weeks of technical assistance to develop tailored software and interface. In future, it will be a matter of a simple click.
Beyond improving productivity, the customer will benefit from a cost effective system as the new common language will reduce work and time on the manufacturing side by not having to develop, test and check several interfaces from different suppliers and for each brand and technology. Indeed, this benefit was the very reason driving the 7 member companies towards this common project.


In cooperation with
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