Progress in Process Simulate
The target for the end of the week was to build a deeper undertanding of the Process Simulate software as well as learn how to use the CATIA CAD software. CATIA would be used to create any models that were not provided to the team for use within the simulation. Additionally, the team was scheduled to start researching the PLC setup that would be required to interact with the simulation environment.
Given the difficulties faced previously with Process Simulate, assistance was sought from the software installation expert. This resulted in a demonstration of the software which acted as a starting point for further progress. By the end of the week, this progress had resulted in the opening and manipulation of an existing factory cell. Further work was still required to re-create the setup however having a working simulation would allow the team to learn and write the PLC programming needed for a basic cell. This tied in with the task schedued for research on PLC. Next week, the team will focus on putting this research into practice.
A student edition of the CATIA software was downloaded and tutorials completed to navigate the main features. Given the similarlity to previous CAD packages used by the team, this knowledge was sufficient to create further models and so the task to learn the CATIA software was deemed complete ahead of schedule.
Upon review of recent progess, the project plan was updated to run certain tasks in parallel as opposed to sequentially. In particular it was decided that it would be beneficial if the linking of the simulation and programming was scheduled earlier and at run the same time as the construction of Process Simulate and the PLC Programming.
To date, the project is ahead of schedule and at this early stage progress looks promising in efforts to creating a working factory cell powered by a virtual PLC controller.
