WebLytics, remote monitoring and diagnostics software for collaborative robotics applications - SnapSoft

WebLytics, remote monitoring and diagnostics software for collaborative robotics applications

WebLytics, remote monitoring and diagnostics software for collaborative robotics applications

Client:

Company Logo

Region:

Nordic

Industry:

Collaborative Robotics

OnRobot, the One Stop Shop for collaborative robot applications, provides a wide assortment of tools and solutions for collaborative applications including electric, vacuum and magnetic grippers, Gecko gripping technology, force/torque sensors, vision system, screwdriver, sander kits and tool changers. Headquartered in Odense, Denmark, OnRobot also has sales offices in Europe, North America and Asia, and a large R&D center in Budapest. OnRobot is committed to removing barriers to automation adoption by bringing to the market solutions and technologies – such as advanced software, that are affordable, accessible and create substantial value to companies of all sizes. The company made its software debut with the launch of WebLytics, a unique production monitoring, device diagnostics, and data analytics software only solution designed to enhance productivity and minimize downtime across production.

Our partner said

“The collaboration was smooth, the SnapSoft developers were highly motivated, and were an integral part of the WebLytics core team. They regularly joined us in our offices and gained hands-on knowledge of industrial robots and OnRobot devices. As a result, we launched an innovative, high-quality product in November 2021. This has been OnRobot's largest software product launch to date. We are looking forward to working with SnapSoft’s developers again in the future."
Vilmos Beskid
CTO, OnRobot and GM, OnRobot Budapest
“The collaboration was smooth, the SnapSoft developers were highly motivated, and were an integral part of the WebLytics core team. They regularly joined us in our offices and gained hands-on knowledge of industrial robots and OnRobot devices. As a result, we launched an innovative, high-quality product in November 2021. This has been OnRobot's largest software product launch to date. We are looking forward to working with SnapSoft’s developers again in the future."

Overview

With WebLytics, OnRobot offer an easy to use and affordable production monitoring solution that empowers small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to introduce smart factory technology without all the costs and complexity that have traditionally applied. Capable of monitoring the performance of multiple collaborative applications simultaneously and in real-time, WebLytics gathers equipment data from both robots and tools and transforms it into easy-to-understand, visualized device and application-level intelligence.

WebLytics provides actionable insights into how well a collaborative robot application is performing, offering live device diagnostics, alerts and preventive maintenance measures to keep costly robot cell downtime to a minimum. The solution performs key monitoring functions, such as running time / downtime, movements, parameters, warnings, incidents, errors, etc.

WebLytics can be deployed on a shop floor’s local network or added to a virtual network that connects to the robot cell. Collected data is stored locally on the WebLytics server. Meanwhile, WebLytics’ built-in web server is always accessible from the shop floor network or from anywhere in the world via secure HTTPS connection.

WebLytics comes with an intuitive browser-based interface with hierarchically organized ready-made dashboards which will bring clarity and summarize key data: (a) Factory View provides a simple, high-level view of all the monitored applications, (b) Application View , ready-made dashboard measuring overall equipment efficiency (OEE) both real time and historical, (c) Device View with real time information about devices health including insights into device level utilization, diagnostics, and maintenance information., and (d) Custom View that allows the user to define its own monitoring parameters and charts.

onrobot_image_1.png

Challenges

The remote monitoring and device diagnostics application had to be integrated with all the supported devices - robots and tools, a large number of hardware and software solutions must interact with each other seamlessly and in real-time.

The application also had to work by default, with minimal configuration; a true plug & play solution to fit OnRobot’s existing portfolio of out-of-the-box solutions.

Given the large variety of devices in use these days, the frontend had to be highly responsive to allow correct displays of charts and the customizable dashboard.

Period comparisons and by shift monitoring were not available previously to SMEs and to provide that functionality OnRobot had to develop a solution.

onrobot_image_2.png

SnapSoft’s Contribution to the Solution

SnapSoft provided 3 of the 8 people in the core development team, 2 backend, and 1 frontend developer. SnapSoft’s engineers had a key role in both the backend and frontend development.

Frontend:

  • To achieve a highly responsive frontend capable of displaying a large variety of charts, including client customized ones;
  • Optimized the application page load speed;
  • Developed and optimized the localization logic capable of handling various languages with disparate structures and word lengths.

onrobot_image_3.png

Backend

  • Microservices communication: defining messages for each microservice and software component.
  • License server: WebLytics' is available as SaaS, which requires the development of its own licensing and license tracking solution. A license server was created, where licenses are managed and renewed. That allows smooth SaaS operations, makes software updates. The cloud-based license server is also an important sales tool for customer management and automatic messaging.
  • High volume data storage and processing: design and implementation of data storage and processing of high amounts of data collected from robot cells. As a result, the high volume of data can be efficiently displayed and statistics can be generated in real-time.
  • Performance enhancement and bug fixing: In the final phase of development, OnRobot subjected each hardware and software device to exhaustive testing. SnapSoft had an important role in improving software frontend and backend logic and performance to ensure the timely release of a world-class application.

Technology stack

Angular
Node.js