Memex MERLIN Selected by Mazak

Burlington, Ontario Canada; Tuesday, August 27, 2013 – Mazak, the largest machine tool manufacturer in the world, has selected Memex MERLIN to be implemented at their world class manufacturing facility in Florence, KY, USA.

Following a thorough evaluation of vendors globally, Mazak issued Memex a purchase order to install the MERLIN solution throughout their plant.  MERLIN will be fully operational this fall and on display at Mazak’s Discover 2013, Technology and Education Event, beginning October 8th.

Memex Automation’s flagship product MERLIN is a Manufacturing Execution System application that tracks manufacturing operations bi-directionally from the ERP work order to each machine’s detailed operations.  MERLIN is able to connect to all machines on the shop floor using various protocols, MTConnect adapters or network connectivity devices. It measures capacity utilization and Overall Equipment Effectiveness metrics, and tracks up to the second detail about every event at a machine, all automatically.

“We continue to take a leadership position in propagating the MTConnect open protocol,” said Brian Papke, President of Mazak Corporation. “MTConnect’s value to our customers is in the ability for them to establish extensive and open channels of communication for plug-and-play interconnectivity between devices. MTConnect allows software to be universally applied between different types of machine models so that information is readily available for improving machine tool utilization. Using MERLIN’s capability, Mazak is taking another positive step in further increasing the productivity of our North American operations, ensuring the strong competitiveness of our Kentucky manufacturing.”

According to Neil Desrosiers, Mazak’s developer of digital solutions; “We want to demonstrate to our customers that they, too, can improve their productivity through MTConnect machine monitoring capability. Because when it comes to machine tool performance, you have to measure it before you can improve it.”

“Manufacturers today require both the adoption of new practices and new machining technology.  In order to improve productivity, the machines on the shop floor need to be analyzed continuously in an automated way”, said Memex President & CEO David McPhail.  “More and more companies are interested in enabling LEAN. If you can measure every state and event of the machine, then you have the evidenced-based data to effect change and improve efficiency of operations.” he said.

MERLIN utilizes the MTConnect protocol to communicate shop floor information to the top floor.  This MES solution will allow Mazak to monitor its manufacturing equipment in their award-winning plant and gather valuable data about their manufacturing operations. As well as keeping a historical record, MERLIN presents capacity utilization information in real-time in a format suitable fordisplay on large screens as well as on tablets and portable smart devices.

About Memex Automation Inc.

Memex MERLIN delivers overall equipment effectiveness (“OEE”) metrics in real-time, enabling manufacturers to increase production and increase income from operations profitably. Based in Burlington, Ontario, Memex, as a world leader in manufacturing connectivity solutions, offers Shop Floor to Top Floor Information in Real-Time and has sold a variety of connectivity products since 1992 to over 12,000 customers with 280 dealers, globally.  For more information, call 905.635.1540, email salesgroup@memex.ca, or visit http://www.memex.ca.