BIS is the software application for wear and tear monitoring on transfer machine tools.

To keep the quality standard in every finished product, we need continuous monitoring on tools that are set on the machine's revolver heads. This way we can perform a preventive maintenance - substitution of every tool that reached a pre-set overall amount of working hours.
The supposed bearable amount of work has been esteemed as to prevent the tool's wear, so that its last working session would lead to high profile results. In the long-term, the substitution of a tool still in working order grants a high production standard and a greater economic advantage than a later substitution, while the wear's started already and the latest finished products show various and different imperfections.

The needed system should recognize every single tool on the rotary transfer, keep a record of the working hours already accumulated and advice the operator whenever the pre-set wear and tear threshold for that tool is crossed , to proceed then with a preventive substitution.

BIS was designed to handle this kind of operation as simply as efficiently.
A tag is applied on every revolver head. This tag identifies that very tool, which is placed on the specified head only. The tag readers are now able to record every single work session for every single tool. Any session is then summed to the preceding ones, so that the system knows the whole amount of time that the considered tool already worked for, and what is the remaining work time before the wear and tear threshold is crossed.

Depending on configuration, BIS can be used for surveying a different number of revolver heads. Every tag reader can handle 2 to 6 tags. When the BIS software notices a T&W threshold crossing, an event is generated for the PC operator and the PLC gets a communication as well. The operator is also warned in cases like untagged heads; tags with unknown code; coexistence of two identical tags in the same system; etc.
This comes with an extremely user-friendly interface , where only the mouse is needed for real time monitoring and a few simple keyboard operations are requested to configure tags, tag readers, tag writers. Finally, the software features a help manual for complex operations and for configuration data.

BIS (configured for maximum capability) shows up as the following:

      1. Visualized buttons showing the state of communications between serial port and processors;
      2. Check box. Checked, it shows - in the grid below - the performing heads only. Unchecked, it shows all the heads from the database.
      3. Heads grid;
      4. Events grid;
      5. Active processors. According to plant configuration, GREY ones are present - GREY ones WITH DIAGONAL LINES are not present;
      6. Plant's modules. Only configured modules are shown;
      7. Working heads. Only configured heads are shown;
      8. Toolbar.

BIS can still be extended and some new functions are being developed. For instance, an interaction with the warehouse's management system, as to automatically order new parts. Also, a new feature will allow the moving of the same tool from one transfer machine to another, while avoiding the loss of its registered working time data - which is done using tag readers as tag writers too, so that they can record data on tags by themselves.