AI solutions by Festo blend hardware expertise with innovative software

Festo uses predictive maintenance in the automotive industry to increase efficiency in the maintenance of servo-pneumatic ​​​​welding guns by avoiding unforeseen downtime and service and complaint costs.

Festo Canada showcased various innovations at Hannover Messe in April, including artificial intelligence (AI). The company aims to develop AI solutions for predictive maintenance, predictive quality, and predictive energy, establishing this innovation as a key technology and core competence in its product portfolio. This will take the automation industry to new levels of efficiency, combining hardware expertise in electrical and pneumatic actuation with software and AI knowledge.

Maintenance efficiency in welding guns

Using condition monitoring and machine learning in automation technology, Festo monitors the behaviour of its customer’s components, machines, and systems. This makes production more efficient and safer, improves quality, and minimizes downtime, waste, and energy expense. In industrial intelligence, mixing algorithms with engineering expertise is the key to implementing AI-based automation successfully.

In collaboration with Resolto, a subsidiary that specializes in AI, Festo has developed a software solution called Festo AX – used for predictive maintenance, quality, and energy. Depending on the application, the company’s application engineering experts adapt Festo AX and tailor it to the customer’s specific requirements. Festo constantly monitors machine data and checks them against its AI model; the AI algorithms can predict or detect deviations from normal.

One example of Festo AI solutions at work: a German automobile manufacturer that uses predictive maintenance in car-body construction. This company wanted to boost maintenance efficiency in its servo-pneumatic welding guns by eliminating downtime and lowering service expenses. Festo implemented algorithms to predict failures in the guns, integrating them into the existing infrastructure. After collecting and evaluating data, this system identified impending failures in advance. As a result, the customer shifted repair to non-production time and cut downtime by roughly ¼.

Festo is also using AI predictive energy for a customer in the food and packaging industry, to minimize energy consumption in a pneumatically operated bottling plant, thereby reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and save money. The client hopes to use this collected data for predictive maintenance in the future too.

These AI solutions are not limited to Festo components; customers can easily integrate other components through Industry 4.0 gateways and standardized protocols.

To learn more, contact Festo.

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