Siemens MediaService User Manual

Nuremberg, Germany February 1,
2021

MediaService Digital Industries

Siemens AG

Communications
Head: Clarissa Haller

Wittelsbacherplatz 2
80333 Munich
Germany

Old and new – perfectly combined

• Modernizing of key facility for production of inner races with Siemens RFID

technology

Offenbach am Main, Germany. GKN Driveline Offenbach, supplier of power

transmission systems and solutions for the automotive industry, relies on

RFID technology from Siemens to modernise its key facility for production of

inner races. The new RFID solution for workpiece recognition could be

implemented during ongoing operations, so that the 30-year-old plant

contributes to productivity at the site.

The flexible, automated production – FAP facility for short – takes up almost an

entire hall at GKN Driveline in Offenbach. Every second, the long broaches at the

five broaching machines raise and lower, and parts are conveyed from the

machining to the washer, the hardening equipment and the tempering furnace.

Here, the company produces a majority of its inner races, which are the core

component in constant-velocity joint assemblies in countless vehicles. All machines

are linked together: Up to 12 workpieces are automatically transported on pallets

from one station to the next and machined in accordance with the specification. In

order for the workpieces to pass through every work step exactly as specified, each

of the pallets is equipped with an RFID tag. On the tag, the information on the

workpieces and the process are stored, which is updated as steps are gone through

– so that it is always possible to comprehend which steps have already been

completed and which ones are still pending. By means of readers, each pallet is

identified, fed to the corresponding machining station, and transferred back to the

conveyor systems after completion of the work step – completely without manual

Frei verwendbar Page 1/3

Siemens AG

Background information

intervention. The complex processes have been controlled for more than 30 years

by a Simatic S5, which is still reliable doing its duty today around the clock and is

absolutely critical for the productivity here at this site.

Time-sensitive modernization of a key facility

Nevertheless

and again – and since the entire production at the Offenbach location is affected by the

downtime of this facility, availability is always paramount, explains Andreas Bartsch, GKN

Driveline Site Service Maintenance. “For scheduled repairs to the facility, we always have

only small time windows available. It is therefore important that a new component can be

integrated as smoothly as possible.” This also applies to the modernisation of a total of 40

Moby I readers for reading out and writing tags on the pallets. Important was for the new

RFID system to be compatible with the existing automation technology in particular with the

existing S5 controller.

, central components of the facility have to be replaced or modernized again

With the new solution the current Simatic RF350 readers can

easily be connected to the existing interface of the Simatic S5 via an adapter cable.

The reader automatically detects the serial protocol and sets the Moby I protocol if it

is connected to a Moby I-capable communication module. The Moby I emulation

processes the telegrams of the Moby I protocol at its serial interface and

communicates the information seamlessly using the matching RF300 transponders.

As a result, GKN Driveline could continue to use the existing configuration, which

considerably simplified the conversion. In addition, to avoid possible production

downtimes, the new system was put into operation in only three days during the

Christmas shutdown. Since their successful commissioning, the new Simatic RF

systems have been working reliably.

GKN Driveline

With approximately 26,000 employees at 46 production sites in 26 countries, GKN

Driveline is the world's leading system developer for drive train technologies with its

constant-velocity joint assemblies and solutions for all-wheel/4-wheel drive and

electromobility. GKN is the only Tier One supplier with a complete portfolio of

system technologies for constant-velocity joints. The company supplies key drive

train components, eDrive and all-wheel/4-wheel drive systems, and is a leading

provider of both torque vectoring and eDrive systems.

Frei verwendbar Page 2/3