Quantifying the Performance of MT-Connect in a Distributed Manufacturing Environment

Recently, MTConnect has been developed as an open and free communications standard to facilitate the exchange of data on the manufacturing floor for machine tools and related devices. This paper will briefly describe MTC, and look at quality of service issues investigated by implementing a modest MTConnect testbed in a “Dual-Ethernet” machine tool network configuration. MTConnect is expected to address the continuing pressure to reduce costs and improve time to market places in the CNC manufacturing world. It can facilitate smarter ways of manufacturing and intensifies the need to integrate feedback from the shop floor into the enterprise business systems.