A robot-tended CNC cell with a PLC-to-robot handshake protocol, a worked machine-vision camera sizing calculation, laser-etched part traceability, and real-time MES data connectivity.
The project brief: an Industry 4.0 precision-machining cell where a 6-axis robot tends a CNC mill, a machine-vision station inspects four critical hole positions and an overall length to ±0.05 mm, and every part's identity and process data flow into the plant's Manufacturing Execution System in real time. This is the program's integration case study across four control domains that each work fine alone — robot, CNC, vision, and MES connectivity — and only become a smart manufacturing cell through a disciplined handshake protocol and a shared part-identity scheme.
This module walks the whole project the way a real controls integrator would: the discrete PLC-to-robot handshake sequence that replaces timer-based guessing, why the safety circuit is kept physically separate from the EtherNet/IP handshake network, a worked machine-vision camera resolution calculation, why parts are laser-marked before inspection rather than after, the MES tag set that supports both real-time SPC and after-the-fact genealogy lookups, and a worked cell cycle-time and throughput calculation. The full worked numbers, complete bill of materials, and finished design reasoning are part of the unlocked module below.