Manufacturing & assembly

Inico products excel at bringing advanced Information and Communication Technologies to the factory floor. Inico devices are modular, smart, cost effective, and have a small footprint, fostering modular and distributed automation systems vs. traditional monolithic PLC applications, which are inflexible to accomodate changing production demands.

Our roots are in the manufacturing and assembly business, so we encourage you to explore the following application areas where we shine.

Production logistics

Our line of Smart RTU and PAC devices are ideally suited for automated assembly and production logistic systems. Our advantage lies in not only being able to control industrial equipment, but integrating with IT equipment to monitor production in real time, and to seamlessly command a quick product changeover.

• Conveyor control
  • Control motors, relays, AC drives
  • Product proximity detection
  • RFID and Barcode automation
  • Integration to IT systems for complex material routing
• Assembly equipment control
  • Control drills, presses, drives, pneumatics, etc
  • Command robotic assembly cells
  • Integration to IT systems for instant product/recipe change
• Integration to legacy PLCs and IOs for updates/enhancements
• Web-based operator interface through PC, laptop or SmartPhone/PDA.

Plant visibility

Our expertise in IT ↔ Factory Floor integration is what sets us apart from other RTU and PAC solutions. Utilizing real-time XML/SOAP messaging, it takes software engineers less than 45 minutes to program software to receive and process live plant data. No special drivers or license/royalty costs involved.

• Material flow
  • Monitor product flow
  • Monitor raw material use
  • Implement pre-emptive material re-stock
• Networked alarms and events
  • Receive real-time alarms
  • Automated maintenance dispatch
  • 24/7 condition monitoring and reporting: text messages, e-mail, IT alarms
• Operator tracking
• Environment monitoring
  • Temperature and air quality monitoring
  • Energy metering
  • Lighting automation

Key Performance Indicators

In addition to IT integration capabilities, Smart RTUs offer data processing capabilities that can be used to obtain Key Performance Indicators (KPI), such as Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE). Making use of multiple sensor data and process parameters, which is not available in IT or SCADA systems, more accurate and varied KPIs can be calculated.

• KPIs for controlled equipment
  • Integrate KPI calculations in control algorithms
  • Use KPIs as feedback to optimize control
  • Integrate KPIs to Factory IT systems
  • Display KPIs in plant manager's SmartPhone/PDA
• KPIs for legacy equipment
  • Obtain parameters from legacy I/O and fieldbus devices
  • Calculate KPIs at factory floor
  • Integrate KPIs to Factory IT systems
  • Incremental investment vs. rip and replace

Legacy equipment integration

Inico products support integration to legacy equipment through a variety of legacy protocols, as well as through I/O handshaking. Supporting legacy equipment is a key part of Inico's value proposition, allowing for incremental investment vs. complete replacement/redesign of automation systems. Improve the ROI by using Inico products to add smart features to your old equipment.

• Integration to legacy equipment
  • Support for legacy protocols such as Modbus, DeviceNet, CANOpen
  • Flexibility to implement custom communication protocols through serial port
  • Integration through I/O handshaking
• Integrate legacy equipment to IT
  • Process data and calculate KPIs
  • Gateway signals to IT
  • Display legacy equipment in Web browser or SmartPhone/PDA
  • Receive and update control parameters in legacy equipment