Enabling Weigh and Dispense in SAP Digital Manufacturing

Introduction

SAP Digital Manufacturing offers robust Weigh and Dispense capabilities in Order POD, as part of Material Consumption plugin, enabling physical scale integration on the shop floor for enhanced material consumption processes.

In this blog post, we will see a short demo of Weigh and Dispense plugin in action, and how to configure it in detail.

The steps listed below are currently valid as of 23.08 Release of SAP Digital Manufacturing.

Please note that part of this process might change soon, as SAP Digital Manufacturing is planning to deprecate Asset Central Foundation Model support soon. Consequently, some of these steps might soon change. This blog post should be updated timely, as soon as the new model is released.

Demo

Automation

SAP Digital Manufacturing Weight and Dispense capability integrates with physical scales on the shop floor using OPC Protocol via SAP Plant Connectivity (SAP PCo) or SAP Production Connector (SAP PrCo) and Digital Twins.

For such integration, the following automation tags are needed for each physical scale:

• Current UoM
• Current Weight
• Tare Weight
• Tare Scale
• Zero Scale

See an example below:

* Note that two sets of tags are shown above, representing two different physical scales.

Scale Digital Twin 

First, we must model the Scale Digital Twin in SAP Digital Manufacturing by creating Indicators, Indicator Group and Equipment Template.

To do so, open Templates app and use Indicators, Indicator Group and Equipment Template options below to model the scale digital twin in SAP Digital Manufacturing:

Create the following Indicators:

Create an Indicator Group and add the Indicators accordingly:

Create an Equipment template, and add the Indicator Group:

Configuration

To enable Weigh and Dispense integration to physical shop floor scales, you must perform the following configurations:

1. Define a Production Process in Design Production Processes app and consume the Weigh and Dispense Scale Read service. Example:

Save and deploy it.

This Production Process will be triggered from an Automatic Trigger of Subscription type as soon as the scale values like weight or uom change.

For more details, see Design Production Processes.

2. Define a Shop Floor system using SAP Plant Connectivity (PCo) or SAP Production Connector (SAP PrCo) via Configure Production Connectivity app. Example:

For more details, see About Production Connectivity Model.

3. Create an Equipment in Manage Equipment Connectivity app, for a digital representation of the weighing scale.

Define the Shop Floor system created on the previous step as a Service Provider and link the automation tags to the respective Indicators accordingly as shown below:

For more information, see Manage Equipment Connectivity.

4. Using the Manage Automatic Triggers app, create a new Subscription on top of Current Weight and Current UoM Indicators to trigger the previously created Production Process with needed Input parameters from the shop floor via PCo or PrCo, to be triggered when there is an indicator change on the scale. Example:

Save and deploy it.

For more details, see Manage Automatic Triggers.

5. In the POD Designer app, select an Order POD and make the following configurations:

5.1 Select Material Consumption plugin and click Settings icon to maintain the scale equipment Indicators recently mapped to the scale automation tags in Manage Equipment Connectivity app as follows:

For more details, see Material Consumption.

5.2 Click Configure Notifications button to configure the POD Weigh and Dispense notifications.

Here you must check Work Center and Weigh and Dispense Scale Message options.

6. Create and assign Scale Resource(s) to Work Center(s), in the Manage Work Centers app:

7. Assign the Equipment previously created in Manage Equipment Connectivity app for the scale in Step 3 to the relevant Resource(s) in the Manage Resources app:

8. Set the Weighing Relevant flag in Manage Routings/Recipes app to Yes, for the required order phase in the Master Recipe:

This flag will be copied over from Master Recipe to Order-specific Recipes during Order Download.

For more information, see Phase Details.

Usage

Once all configuration steps above are in place, you should be able to see that “Weigh” button is enabled in Material Consumption plugin, instead of “Consume” button:

Once “Weigh” button is clicked, “Weigh Material” popup should shows up, where you must select a Batch if needed and a Scale, in order to see the Current Weight and UoM being automatically loaded directly from the shop floor scale:

If “Set Zero” or “Set Tare” buttons are clicked, SAP Digital Manufacturing writes “1” (True) to the respective boolean tags in the shop floor automation side as a command to the scale to start Zero or Tare procedures. Example:

Demo

Conclusion

SAP Digital Manufacturing offers robust Weigh and Dispense capabilities in Order POD, as part of Material Consumption plugin, enabling physical scale integration on the shop floor for enhanced material consumption processes.

Do you like this post? Please let me know in the comments section what you think. Any feedback is highly appreciated.

Or, if you have any questions, please check SAP Community Q&A Area, or comment down below.

Thanks,

Manoel Costa