Is there more ways to skin a cat in the world of coding?
As many ways as there are software Engineers of cause
As with all things, people have different takes on how to go about it.
Are some methods better than others? Absolutely and there are many reasons why coding must follow good practice. The equipment the vendor sells must add significant value to the manufacturer through the installation of continuous money producing cash cows, which is imperative to the long term cost effective and competitiveness of the Australian manufacturing sector.
For the Vendor to be cost effective and stay in business which is crucial to the continuous servicing of the cash cows, the vendor must maximise profitability by reducing implementation costs and minimise the post-handover warranty claims that is eating away the profit earnings on projects.
Robust coding leads to reliability, maintainability and transparency which in turn lead to the one thing all factory owners are after – more production uptime – more $ to the bottom line.
Crap code leads to unreliable machine behaviour and makes the otherwise mechanically well designed machinery look — well crappy too
Every man and his dog can learn how to write code but it takes a particular skill to produce effective programs that are solid, repeatable and add to the bottom line of both the vendor and the end user.
Imagine the pilot in the cockpit using a pre-flight checklist from yesterday’s take-off! That most certainly would lead to a fatal crash. Although not as devastating this is often what goes on in the software that runs production lines.
Programs using memory latching of past events often lead to either machine crashes or hung systems. Hung systems are when operators see a healthy “running” machine but no throughput. What’s going on? No alarms, no info, no nothing. The software memory is out of sync with the actual state of the machine. The weather is thunder, high winds and heavy rain, but the check-list (past memory) says blue skies and a mild summer breeze.
When production is running smoothly all is well and the line is ticking away until a stoppage due to an abnormal situation has devastating impact on re-start, the all too familiar frustrating and costly situation for operators, factory owners and vendors alike.
For the majority of people the machine controller is a black box and only few people, the programmers knows what goes on inside in the brain and even that statement is often a stretch.
Without good code structures and the use of more real time logic and less memory latching your machine is built on a poor foundation that will haunt you for the life of the machine and will pull down your line OEE numbers.
Do you know the true cost of Crap code in your machines? We don’t either but it may be worth a look
Want to know more? we are here to help you achieve Manufacturing excellence on all levels
