VonRoll production in Nuelles is a machining company for steel, cast iron, and aluminium parts. It operates around twenty numerically controlled machine tools capable of machining parts up to 5 tons.

Its know-how is focused on machining tools facing extreme conditions that can break. Operators are present to orchestrate the tool flow and control the machining of parts. They rely on documentation containing various instructions and information.

The company’s major problem is to minimize the machine downtime in case of a machining defect. In the frequent case of a defective tool, the operator will manually change the tool and the machining program will be readjusted to restart the production line as soon as possible.

My problem was to update the documentation following these unexpected changes. To automate the procedure, I created a script in Autoit that will analyze the machining program to extract :

• The name of the tool and its machining operation to check for coherence
• Its warehouse code for traceability within the company
• Programmer’s or operator’s comments during a readjustment
• Machining time
  

The machining time is a new data I’ve added. It allows us to predict tool wear and place orders with just-in-time suppliers as well as to inform the operator when it is necessary to change it. All this data is automatically filled in an Excel file ready to print.

The Autoit script will also perform a series of tests on the machining program to check :

• The start-up of all the tools sometimes deactivated during a readjustment of the program
• The relevance of a tool for a machining operation compared to other tools, warehouse stock, other projects, etc…