Zoomfab version history

Released in version 2.08 

 

• Date input field were updated to accept date entered as text
• Stability and visual improvements

 

Released in version 2.07 

 

Express Estimator

Part export

Export feature was added. Exported data contains 3 .csv files per part.

• PartInfo.csv - infromation about the part
• PartBOM.csv - bill of material of the part
• PartWorkflow.csv - operation work flow of the part
  

If the part is an assembly, the 3 files are generated for each part in the assembly. File names have an assembly sequention number in front, starting from bottom of the hierarchy up. So when files are imported in alphabetical order, parts will be created from bottom up. 

Export can be found on 2 places. In context menu of RFQ product or in context menu on part dashboard page.

    

 

Other smaller visual and functional improvements.

 

Released in version 2.06

Express Estimator

Free from nesting

Free form nesting is now default engine for nesting parts and to calculate material utilisation. Free form nesting is pro version feature. Access to the engine may will ne limited to pro version user in future versions. Note: some solutions may be very complicated. If free form nesting is not able to nest parts within reasonable time, Express Estimator will use simplified rectangular nesting as a fallback.

 

Technology

Technology tables for all operations involving Laser were extended by adding technology times and consumption values for 

• 3200kW laser power
• for MS ZN (coated steel) substrate
• O2 cutting gas

 

 

Released in version 2.05

Express Estimator

• Fields on many operations were grouped and reorganised for faster input
• Option to rotate the main part drawing was added
• A quote from a subcontractor can now be entered to the system without attaching a document or stating explicitly a quote number.
• In a situation when part drawing is not available it is now possible to upload .dxf as main drawing. This is automatically converted and used as both the main drawing document and a geometry for analysis and nesting.
• When one of the simple shapes are used instead of uploading .dxf geometry, bend lines are automatically generated when needed to form final standard type of product
• When adding a new product to be quoted to RFQ, customer product code and revision are now optional. When not entered, the product code and revision will be automatically generated 
• Many pop up alerts and questions were revised to show only when relevant and necessary
• Information icons with help were added to several places
• Many internal changes were also done to make user experience even better

 

 

 

 

Released in version 2.04

Express Estimator

Parallel nesting

Express Estimator will now use parallel nesting automatically for all standard sheet sizes. When nesting is finished sheet size with the best utilisation is automatically selected. 

DXF analysis

Dxf parser was updated to handle splines and small gaps in geometry. Automatic detection of bend lines was also added in which case the bending and folding operations get autoamtically pre-filled number of bends.

 

 

Monitoring

Automatically entering fullscreen on dashboards

In case you'd like a link to monitoring dashboard that will open automatically in fullscreen, add to the link parmeter mode=full

e.g.  https://app.zoomfab.com/monitoring/?mode=full

This is particularly usefull when adding desktop shortcut to open monitoring dashboard. Or for other automated ways of showing dashboard.

 

General

Backround technology.

Major upgrade to engine and guts of Zoomfab software was done to keep it in top shape. Making it fast, realiable and secure.

 

Released in version 2.03

This Christmas release brings you the following presents:

General

Feedback form

In the main menu, you can now find a new button labeled "Support." When pressed, you will be able to send us a report if you notice something wrong or if you want to provide suggestions. Zoomfab will automatically take a screenshot of the current page. You will have the option to hide certain areas on the screenshot that you don't wish to share or highlight specific areas that you want to point out.

 

 

Express Estimator

Discounting tool 

Materials can now be discounted by modifying the unit price of a particular material. Modifying the margin is still available as it was. This provides further information about the price structure and offers more control over the discounting process.

 

Custom order of operations

A new option, "REORDER," has been added to the part engineering workflow section. When activated, you will be able to modify the order of operations in the right pane. By default, operation buttons are ordered alphabetically. When the order is modified, it will be saved for all users. This allows you to have your most-used operations at the top and easily accessible.

 

Quote actions

We have redesigned the bottom part of the quote preparation window to give you all possible options on how to deal with the quote. Now, you have multiple choices suitable for various scenarios.

1. If you want to preview the quote, use the "Preview" button in the PDF section.
2. If you want to download the quote, use the "Download" button in the PDF section.
3. If you just want to close the quote, use the "Save and Close" button.
4. If you want to send the quote to the customer's email, use the "Send by Email" button.
5. If you want to send the quote to the customer using your CRM system or your own method, use the "Download" button to save the quote to your computer and the "Mark Complete" button.

In case there are some non-validated prices of materials used to calculate the quote, aside from the message reminding you about this, there is also a switch that lets you change the quote to become final. This is useful if you want to speed up the quote delivery and expect the prices to change marginally after verification or you simply want to take the risk.

On the history of quotes page, you can clearly see what type of quote (preliminary or final) was created, by whom, and when. You can also see who completed the quote and when, and whether the quote was sent to the customer by email from Zoomfab or not.

 

A lot of other smaller improvements

Marry Christmas!

 

 

Released in version 2.02

 

Express Estimator

Grain direction

It is now possible to specify part rotation restriction for nesting to horizontal or vertical. If horizontal is forced, nesting will not allow part rotation other then 0 degrees. If vertical is selected, parts will be restricted to 90 degrees rotation when nested. Otherwise free rotation will be used.

 

Handling time calculation

Operations time calculation for handling was updated to account for automatic part loading and automatic part unloading where appropriate. Such operations got new technology tables with possibility to adjust these times. 

 

Released in version 2.01

 

Express Estimator

Review prices page

Review prices page of product in RFQ was changed to show Material and Operations of entire assembly structure. It is now much faster to find missing or outdated price in more complex hierarchy. Edit action of missing or expired price now highligts the particular price item in the list of prices for quick access.

 

Variety of other improvements 

• Option to create a copy of any existing part in the part database. This will speed up engineering of parts with very similar characteristics.
• Improved replacement of an obsolete sub part in BOM list of the part. New revision of the obsolete part can be created directly in BOM list.
• Added possibility of updating all parameters of idividual prices in the material database.
• Mouse over inline picture preview was added to material thumbnails to see the picture in more detail.
• Many other smaller visual and functional improvements.
•  

 

Released in version 2.00

 

Express Estimator

We are proud to announce the first version of our fast quoting and part engineering product, Express Estimator. For a limited period, you can access it free of charge in the left main menu. If you would like a full presentation, please contact your ZOOMFAB dealer. If you have any feedback or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you at infozoomfab.com. 

 

 

Released in version 1.27

 

Monday Report

 

Target OEE in Work centre efficiency graph was updated to show average target OEE of all machines in the work centre.

Color indicator of OEE percentage is now compared against real work centre OEE target instead of industry standard.

When OEE target is reached in last week, color is green. If it is less color is orange. If achieved OEE is lower by more than 20%, color becomes red.

 

Released in version 1.26

Analytics Downtime

 

Downtime report shows monthly analysis of performance and reasons why individual machines in work centres were not available for work.

Percentual accidency of Reasons for interruption and exceeded setup time are shown for last month. In detailed graph it is possible to evaluate trend over past 12 month of each individual reason.

 

 

 

 

Released in version 1.25

Past Monday reports download

It is now possible to switch to past Monday reports on main Dashboard. PDFs can be downloaded for past reports as well.

 

 

 

Released in version 1.24

Analytics Energy

New analytics page for Energy consumption was intruduced.

It brings comprehensive information about electricity used on monitored machines, work centres and entire facility.

Information include following

Per machine

• Average machine power consumption during work and during machine indling (standby)
• Estimated yearly energy wasted
• Energy consumed per average week, average month and yearly estimate. Break down of energy consumed to work, planned idle and unplanned idle (waste).
• Past 12 weeks graph of energy consumption break down
• Past 12 weeks graph of idling vs. work time
• Maximum current measured on the machine

 

Per work centre

• Total average power consumption of all machines in work centre during work and during machine indling (standby)
• Estimated yearly energy wasted in the work centre
• Energy consumed per average week, average month and yearly estimate. Break down of energy consumed to work, planned idle and unplanned idle (waste).
• Past 12 weeks graph of energy consumption break down
• Past 12 weeks graph of idling vs. work time

Entire facility

• Total average power consumption of all machines during work and during machine indling (standby)
• Estimated yearly energy wasted total
• Energy consumed per average week, average month and yearly estimate. Break down of energy consumed to work, planned idle and unplanned idle (waste).
• Past 12 weeks graph of energy consumption break down
• Past 12 weeks graph of idling vs. work time

 

Analytics data can be averaged per past 3, 6 or 12 months. Chose shorter period if you want to evaluate more recent consumptions. Chose longer period to smooth out seasonal differences.

 

•  

 

Released in version 1.23

OEE Performance factor measurement

Zoomfab has always been measuring availability factor of the OEE. We are now introcuducing a new type of a sensor which can measure also perfomance (speed) factor of OEE. For machines where the new sensor is used, reference performance can be set as cycles per minute. If machine is working at lower speed, perfomance factor will be lower than 100%. Over all efficiency is calculated by 3 factors. 1. availability, 2. performance, 3. quality. 3rd factor quality can be measured when machine is equiped with EDC+ terminals. 

i.e. When machine is working 90% of the planned time (availability = 90%) and it is runnnig at 80% of reference speed (performance = 80%) and it produced items are in 99% good quality, overall efficiency achieved by the machine is

OEE = 90% * 80% * 99% =  71%

 

 

Work window improvements

Zoomfab has built in inteligence that allows for flexible work times. When work schedule of the machine is set (shifts) and work is performed outside of these hours, Zoomfab can determine to shihc shift the work belongs and automatically extends work window which is then used to correctly calculate achieved efficiency. This integligence was improved to correctly handle also shifts that cross midnight.

 

 

Released in version 1.22

Monday Report PDF version and automatic delivery

It is now possible to download PDF version of Monday report. PDF can be downloaded for entire company using link on top of the Monday report section on your Dashboard. This report will contain a company summary and also a report for each individual Work Center. The PDF report for individual work center can be downloaded separatelly using a download button in the work center section of Monday report section on your Dashboard.

 

Zoomfab will automatically deliver Monday report by email every Monday for previous week. It will be delivered to all users with rights level Administrator and Level1. Users can turn off the automatic delivery on own user profile page.

Note: Monday report is generated on Monday morning. In exceptional case when some machines haven't got monitoring data ready the report will be still generated and sent by email. It will contain note to indicate that it is not fully complete. When such machine statistics data will be processed anytime later during the week, Monday report will be automatically updated on your Dashboard where you can download an updated PDF version as well.

 

Released in version 1.21

Monday Report

From now on you will receive a performance report every Monday for each work centre and entire facility. The ultimate purpose of the Monday Report is to help you enhance your business performance. It has been written mainly for the senior management, but other employees can also use it with authorized access to this information.

The report has two sections. The first one covers the performance of the whole facility, together with some other non-performance-related but critical data. The second section covers the performance of individual work centres.

The report can be found in ZOOMFAB’s main Dashboard, PDF export will be available soon.

Please note that to get the best out of this report, machine production hours and hourly rates must be properly set. 

Click on help button on title bar to get comperensive explanation of the meaning of each element of the report and instructions how to resolve problems with displaying data in your report.

 

 

Machines management rights and support user

There has been a change in rights for actions for user of Level 2. Such users can now add, modify and dispose assets. Users Level 2 can't delete records and still can't see any finantial information of the company.

You may have noticed a "support" user in the user management section on your company settings page. Your dealer can use this user to access your ZOOMFAB and help you to configure the system. Level 2 is suited for this type of a user as he cannot access finantial data. You can disable and enable this user anytime as you wish.

 

ZOOMFAB for Poland

As ZOOMFAB is expanding to new markets, Polish language has been added to ZOOMFAB along with Polish Zloty (zł) currency.

 

Released in version 1.20

Shifts and Efficiency data export

Machine schedule was updated to full support of multiple shifts including a break. Any number of shifts can be set for each week day. Shifts can start immediatelly after each other and can be set over night. Overnight shift is considered to belong to the day where the shift starts. For machines that don't have set up work schedule, there will be one efficiency calculated per day from time period defined by the first power ON and last power OFF of the particular day or first and last activity of the machine in a case when power ON/OFF is unknown.

Data export is available with Efficiency calculated per shift for selected period of time in CSV and JSON formats.

 

Released in version 1.19

 

Product manipulation time

It is now possible to set allowed idling time differently for each machine. By default this time is set to 60s and periods of machine inactivity less then this value are still consider as worked time. On some machines doing specific jobs it may be required to allow more time for manipulation during the job. This new setting will allow to set machine utilisation calculation more realistically.

 

Monitoring dashboards progressive loading

Loading of monitoring dashboards was greatly optimised. Progressive loading will allow to load and display large amount of machines even on computers with limited rendering capabilities.

 

 

Released in version 1.18

 

Production vs. non production assets

Assets that don't directly contribute to factory production don't have planned production hours and don't make any revenew. Zoomfab now has an automatic determination of production and non production assets based on assets categorisation. This helps to hide non necessary information on non production assets and makes it easier to assign production assets to work centres showing only relevant assets. Non production assets can still be monitored for consumption and machine activity. However there will be no Utilisation/OEE, revenue and similar statistics provided as these are not relevant for non production asset.

 

Shop floor monitoring dashboard

Sometimes it is great to discuss monitoring data also on portable devices. This is why we updated design of shop floor style monitoring dashboard as well to fit it on tablet screens in landscape mode.

 

 

Released in version 1.17

 

Machine ON/OFF monitoring improvements

Under some circumstances when a machine is turned ON but is idling, sometimes electricity current is very low at the limit of physical ability to measure the current reliably. This results in many consequent machine turn ONs and OFFs displayed in the graphs. We improved our monitoring software to remove side effects of such situations. 

Machine activity graph before this release

Machine activity graph after this release

Monitoring dashboards machine work status indicators larger idling tolerance.

Machines work status indicators now allow for 3 minutes of machine idling before indicators show machine as idling. This allows for more manual handling during operators work between actual machine activity. 

Automatic component reloading improvements.

In an event of a network connection error, some components may fail to load data and show network error indicator. When internet connection is restored, and this indicator is clicked by mouse to reload component, all other componets shown on the screen will now automatically reload as well. This is particularly useful on monitoring dashboard screens where many components are shown on the screen. Monitoring page showing real time machine status will reload automatically without manual intervention needed.

 

Many smaller functional and visual improvements

Within a batch of smaller fixes, an error in What If simulator when auxiliary equipment cost was not properly applied in simulated values was corrected. 

 

Released in version 1.16

Asset Monitoring Today Statistics and efficiency calculation.

Efficiency calculation accross the Zoomfab application was updated to better follow real work situations. Even the machine schedule is set, if machine starts working sooner or keeps working longer then schedule, this time is now account into efficiency calculation even it is outside of schedule. We also took a time to review the information shown on Asset dashboard today statistics. Metrics were made even more precise, but most importantly better organised under Production and Non production time. Therefore it is not only visually better to understand but it is also clear how the efficiency was calculated.

 

Monitoring graphs - Mashines with single activity.

From now on machine activity graph will show monitored activity together with over all activity even though it is a single activity that is monitored. This change makes it more consistent and graphs will look same for multi activity and single activity machines.

 

 

Released in version 1.15

Work schedule - multiple work periods per day

In machine work schedule definition it is now possible to define as many work periods during a day as you wish. This way you can exclude lunch breaks and periods between shifts from achieved machine efficiency.

 

Monitoring dashboards - new application version auto update

From now on, when new ZOOMFAB application version is released, machine monitoring dashboards will automatically re-open dashboard in new version. This eliminates need for clicking on the notification which will not obstruct the screen anymore and version updates become smooth, without need for manual intervension.

 

Visual improvements

Many small visual improvements were also released, mostly for high resolution screens.

 

Released in version 1.14

Work owerview dashboard

Work centres layout system was changed to acomodate as many machines as possible to visible area of the screen. New system does show machines from top to bottom in columns from left to right continuosly similar to airport fights sceens. Important change is also a new option to set number of columns shown to Auto. When used Zoomfab application will automatically calculate how many columns are needed to fit all machines on the screen if possible.

 

Released in version 1.13

 

What if

1. Labour based work centres

Labour based work centres are now hidden in what if page. In such case revenue and profits of the company do not include labour based work centres. There is an option to show also labour based work centres under context menu in top right.

2. Operation rates

It is now possible to simulate increase or reduction of operation rates across all operations at the same time. For example this can be used to quickly raise all rates by 5%.

 

4k and 8k screen resolution

We have improved visual presentation of entire ZOOMFAB application on high resolution screens. This is usefull not only for large screens installed in factory but also for zoom out browser function in case you want to fit more information on your work computer or tablet.

Speed improvements

Program of Zoomfab was greatly improved across all sections. Some pages like monitoring dashboards are now rendered twice as fast!

 

Released in version 1.12

 

Effectivity and machines states related to work schedule.

In case machine has got set up work hours schedule, machine idling time during the day is considered within these hours. Due to correct idle time, efficiency is now more real. This is suitable monstly for machines that are not being turned off after work. In the following example, on the left picture, machine is turned on for whole day with not work schedule set. Right picture shows the same machine with work schedule set, efficiency is higher because idling outside of scheduled work time is not counted.

 

This change does not affect electricity consumption calculation during machine idling. For consumption all non production time during whole day even outside work shedule time is counted against idle consumption.

 

Released in version 1.11

 

 

Individual machines on all monitoring dashboards

Settings of all types of monitoring dashboards now allow selection of individual machines to be shown. At the same time Trend and Work overview dashboards still allows to select entire work centres to be selected.

 

Machine activity indicator on monitoring dashboards

 

Green indication of machine working state on all monitoring dashboards was upadeted to keep machine in working state for a little time longer after machine stopped it's activity. This is especially good for press brakes of which activity cycle is very short and machines appeared in dashboards as non working most of the time.

 

Low battery notification

Notification about low battery level of sensors will now show when battery level drops below 60%.

 

Released in version 1.10

 

Interruption reasons

It is now possible to set reasons for production interruption of the machine. To do so, open detailed graph of the machine using zoom button on activity graph. Use mouse cursor to click on interruption red block. Possible reasons will open. Multiple reasons can be selected at the same time. When saved, red arrow is displayed on top of the red block indicating that reasons were set. It is possible to review them or change them by clicking on the red block again. Reasons, person defining the reasons and time of the interruption are logged into notes page of the machine where all interruptions can be listed in chronological order. 

 

User rigths

Monitoring data of machines are now accessible for users with shop floor level access rights (Level 3). Such users will be able to access all monitoring dashboard pages, machine operation statistics on Statistics and Dashboard page of the machine. Users can update reasons for interruptions on the detail statistics graphs. Any finantial information remain undiclosed for these users. 

 

Operation rates alert colors

Operation rates are now marked by red and yellow collor indicating that operation rate used is lower than calculated operation recovery rate and desired profit margin. These inditators are now comparing rate with budgeted if actual recovery rate is not available.

 

New version notifications

While this history page has been around for a while, from now on when ZOOMFAB application is updated with a new features you will also see notification about it on your dashboard page after logging in. Click on it to get to this page which is also accessible at any time by clicking on version number on bottom left of the page.

Released in version 1.09

Machine Schedule

It is now possible to define a weekly work schedule of each individual machine. This is useful when the machine is not being turned off or the machine isn't monitored for power ON/OFF. When schedule is enabled this is what happens

1. Machine work hours per week on the recovery page is calculated from the machine schedule. Numer of work hours per week is used to calculate machine Utilisation. Therefore it is important to set schedule correctly for entire week.

2. Activity graphs will show gray background indicating non working time.

3. Achieved efficiency  shown on monitoring dashboards will be calculated from time the machine has planned to work in current day against time of machine operation.

 

 

 

Released in version 1.07

 

ZOOMFAB EDC®

Extended Data Collection, setup time and production process interruption, are now extensively visualised on the machine dashboard. Today (daily), weekly and monthly times and charts provide a clear picture about machine utilization and the influence on productivity and spare capacity.