Capture helps Stow Robotics to quickly troubleshoot remotely. Data is essential in this. Together with Christof and Pieterjan, we take a closer look at how Capture is used throughout the different phases of their machines.

About Stow Robotics

Stow Robotics is part of the Stow group, a world leader in industrial storage solutions. Stow Robotics includes all existing warehouse automation solutions, from A to Z.

Christof Harinck has been active as a product expert within Stow Robotics since March this year and in order to build up that expertise both mechanically and software-wise, he spent several months in commissioning at an end customer. Working in the field is the best training for understanding everything. Now he forms the bridge between commissioning and the project management team to identify challenges in the field and convert them into solutions or improvements.

During this process Christof often came into contact with Vintecc, the team behind the data framework Capture.

The experience for me and the entire STOW team has been very positive. The people of Vintecc are open and always accessible. My colleague Koen once said: “If you have a problem, just call Vintecc via Teams for a solution.” That's how it actually works. To me you are ”one of us” and that is of course great to work together like this. Short connection lines and effective communication.

Pieterjan Cottignies is a Project engineer within Vintecc and knows both Stow shuttles and the Capture data platform through and through. On the basis of the data, he succeeds in creating value for the different generations of shuttles through the different production phases, which has an impact on the entire machine fleet.

For a developer, data is invaluable. Some bugs would be impossible to find if we didn't have insight into the data.

The challenge

Rapid growth

Stow Robotics is growing rapidly and one of the major challenges is to properly manage all projects. Fortunately, we have the right people in the right place, but we need even more commissioning engineers to work out the (international) projects, says Christof.

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Complexity

Our shuttle contains complex software and an enormous amount of parameters. That is why it is necessary to have a good overview of the software in order to immediately know where the problems lie when an error occurs.

An additional challenge is that our solutions are used in fully automated warehouses where the number of pallet places ranges from a few thousand to even more than 70,000. In addition, sometimes 10, 20 or even 50 shuttles and more run together in one rack where no one physically enters the warehouse. Remote troubleshooting is crucial, but understanding the essence of the problem is even more important.

A large fleet

As indicated earlier, Stow Robotics is going fast and due to the many projects they already have a considerable fleet of machines. We are talking about different generations of machines with different software versions and different parameters that are spread all over the world. Being able to properly structure the data as well as the machine management is extremely important.

Can you tackle those challenges with technology?

Christof: The use of Capture is of great value in this. If a customer calls and can indicate that they have a specific problem at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon on a shuttle, we have insight into what has happened in no time. Data doesn't lie and we save a lot of time and money because we can respond quickly and often even troubleshoot remotely.

Pieterjan: Our mission is to develop smarter machines and make them industry 4.0 ready. Technology is necessary for this. By developing an IIOT solution such as Capture we can accelerate the process of tackling the challenges of today, but also those of tomorrow, because in a rapidly changing environment it is important to stay up-to-date.

A customer-oriented approach

Christof: The goal is also to involve our customers more and to provide transparency. Based on automatic reports, they gain insight into the uptime of their system, the errors with possible links to causes and solutions,… in order to ultimately optimize their system. Feedback to us, but also to our customers!

Common problems such as broken pallets, a dirty rack or cardboard that is not positioned correctly can be reported to the customer remotely by means of alarms. The idea is to evolve into predictive maintenance where we are also alerted when maintenance has to be done.

Pieterjan: We have a wealth of information available to the customer, but the key is that relevante data must arrive at the right people. That is why we opt for the creation of different access levels for, for example, management, operators, service,… For management, the status of the rack and general availability are important, the operators want to receive alarms when an error occurs, while the service department want to see service parameters such as the state of health of the battery.

Are there still features that stand out for you?

Christof: We are a fan of pushing the data to the cloud. The data is then easily accessible, but the customer is king and it is not always possible to make the connection with the internet. That's why it's a big advantage is that we have the flexibility to store the data locally or in the cloud. Via Capture we also have a solution to view the data locally and to generate insights.

Pieterjan: Remote updates ensure that we can update the entire fleet in one go or remotely. In concrete terms, you can make one adjustment to the logger's configuration and update it for the entire fleet with the push of a button. Automating the update provides huge time savings and great cost savings such as travel costs or long production downtimes if you have to do this on site.

How do you see the future?

Christof: We are currently still in an optimization phase where we can get even more out of the dashboards and reporting. The next step is to involve customers and offer additional services such as predictive maintenance and other smart applications.

A link with our Digital Twin is also an application that we see in the future. In this way we would be able to virtually see scenarios from the field or see the shuttles driving in real time.

Do you have any final advice for customers who are hesitant to work with Capture and Vintecc?

Christof: As mentioned before, we consider Vintecc to be part of Stow Robotics. It is a dedicated team full of great minds, with a good mentality. They just go for it and don't shy away from a challenge.

By using Capture we can respond quickly and we have instant insight into the behavior of the shuttles and the uptime at the customers. The ability to customize Capture is, in my opinion, an essential reason to invest in this data platform.

Some tips for using data

Step 1: The development phase

Go for a lot of data, because the cost of missing data is higher than the cost of too much data. In case of bugs or problems, you can immediately search the data.
An additional tip here is that you can also adjust your programming method so that you can get maximum return from your data. An example here is that we also log the status of the shuttles. This ensures that we can view the data faster and do not have to gamble based on the data.

Provide structure and modularity. This will benefit you through the different phases. By working with tags in Capture, we can automate tasks on the one hand and gain insight into the data very quickly on the other.

Step 2: The deployment phase

Once you have the confidence that you know the machine enough, then start logging more specifically. We use triggers to log high resolution data. That way you only have the necessary data in high resolution and in normal operation performance-related data is often sufficient. Automatically sending reports with relevant data gives you insight without even having to log in.

Step 3: The optimization phase

This is a phase that receives too little attention and where there is a big gain. Use the data to improve performance, especially when you have a large fleet like STOW. Even a small improvement that can be extended to the entire fleet is exponentially valuable. Processing data in the cloud is an important step in that direction.

We see Capture as a complete machine management platform that you can customize. Some important properties are in this flexibility, scalability and future-proof. To create a support base where data becomes really valuable, you have to follow two paths.

On the one hand the internal path where you can mainly do machine and process optimizations and on the other hand the path of the customer. What does the customer want to see? This can and will differ depending on the role of the customer contact. One person will find the output parameters important, while another will be concerned about the production stops.

Conclusion

Every machine generates huge amount of data every day. It is a source of knowledge to make our machines smarter and more efficient. As an innovative company, it is important for STOW Robotics that we invest in this technology in order to be competitive and even ahead of our competition. With Vintecc we have a partner on board who understands our needs and has the expertise in the world of Industry 4.0. The Capture tool is the accelerator for quickly arriving at a customized solution.