Precision machining
CNC cell OEE retrofit
A 12-machine CNC cell was flying blind on tool wear and uptime. We added a Pi vision + monitoring layer beside the existing controls — six-week payback.
6 wk
payback
+18%
measured OEE in the first quarter
−$140k
vs the quoted PLC/SCADA upgrade
01 /THE CHALLENGE
The cell ran on mixed-vintage controllers with no shared data. Tool-wear failures scrapped parts before anyone noticed, and OEE was a guess on a whiteboard.
A vendor quote to add SCADA plus a vision PC to every machine ran into six figures and weeks of downtime the line couldn't afford.
02 /WHAT WE DID
The approach
01
Tapped each machine's existing signals over Modbus/serial — no changes to the control loop or safety functions.
02
A Hyleon Node One per cell ran on-device vision for tool-wear and a model for spindle-current anomalies.
03
Live OEE and alerts streamed to a dashboard over MQTT; logic and models update via signed OTA.
03 /THE OUTCOME
What changed
✓Tool-wear is caught before scrap — quality holds went from reactive to predictive.
✓OEE is measured, not guessed, and improved 18% in the first quarter.
✓Total spend was a fraction of the SCADA quote, with zero scheduled downtime to install.
WHAT WE DEPLOYED
3× Hyleon Node OneModbus / serial tapsOn-device vision (Hailo-8)MQTT dashboardSigned OTA
“We replaced a six-figure SCADA quote with three Pi nodes and a vision cell. Six-week payback, and the model tunes itself now.”
Plant Manager
Precision machining · Midwest US