Tracking and Job Scheduling - CrossTrack
Track pre-preg composite material from delivery, through the freezer and onto the shop floor, right down to ply level. Automate CAD import, nesting, material selection and nest scheduling, with full traceability reports in an instant.
Choose the functionality to suit your needs:
MTL |
AMS |
CMS |
CMS-NA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Material Tracking Lite | Advanced Manufacturing Station | Composite Manufacturing Station | Composite Manufacturing Station (Nesting-agnostic) |
|
Full location and life tracking of raw material and cut pieces. Low cost, but with an upgrade path to the full CrossTrack suite. |
Location tracking, with integrated nesting and cut scheduling. | As AMS, but will full material life traceability to ply level. | As MTL, but with additional features to allow integration with your legacy nesting software. |
Finalist - CAMX 2017 and 2018
Winner - The Technology Innovator Awards 2015
Finalist - IT Europa Awards 2015
Finalist - MWP Advanced Manufacturing 2014
Winner - Composites UK 'Innovation in Manufacture' 2013
CrossTrack was developed from the ground up, initially for the aerospace market, to resolve the complex issue of managing orders, materials, nests, parts/plies and kits. Traceability, especially in aerospace is critical - CrossTrack delivers this, giving complete visibility from the initial material, tracking the order, all individual elements and through to the finished part. Companies using CrossTrack benefit from a massive reduction in the reliance on paper, much greater accuracy, as once entered information is carried electronically through the system, and real time access to live order, material and nest data across the network.
Whether staff need to check the remaining life of a given material, queue orders for nesting, check machine availability or build comprehensive reports, CrossTrack provides a single point of reference for all manufacturing data. With the tight integration into the award-winning JETCAM Expert CAM and Nesting system it also produces and manages highly optimized static or dynamic nests.
Industry 4.0 Connectivity
CrossTrack provides a number of automation features off-the-shelf. Processes can be automated, such as database backups, generating custom reports or running external commands, each providing error handling capabilities to tackle real-world situations. External applications can be triggered automatically when certain events occur, such as adding a new material or assembly.
Your data - your servers.
There has been a significant push to cloud-based services over the last few years, but this is not suitable for all customers, especially those working in defence. With news headlines each week heralding a new cyber-attack on organizations there is a significant and growing risk of data theft or corruption, especially if held by third parties such as cloud service providers. CrossTrack is designed for both small business and multinationals alike that may want to access it from multiple locations using technologies such as Citrix, which allows data to be housed on internal, secure networks rather than at risk in the cloud. The option is there to host your data in the cloud if you wish.
Highly customisable, yet 'off-the-shelf' system
Every single CrossTrack customer runs the same 'off-the-shelf' system. This ensures that everyone can take advantage of new releases without fear of 'breaking' custom development. The software itself is highly customisable, and data exchange can be handled through a variety of methods such as simple CSV through to Microsoft Web Services, ensuring that CrossTrack should be compatible with any MRP/ERP system. Furthermore, 'pre-processors'' can quickly be written and configured to run prior to automated tasks such as material or orders import, allowing for data to be 're-shaped' on-the-fly.
Scalable functionality
You can work with as much or as little of CrossTrack as you need. Start with material tracking, nesting and shopfloor scheduling, and then expand to track the life of your pre-preg material, with the ability to generate a full traceability report in second. Add on further features and options such as Industry 4.0 alerting, process management or nesting around defects
Additional stations
The core modules deliver the main functionality of CrossTrack. Several additional modules are available which provide unique functions at specific locations within your manufacturing facility. Each of the optional modules below requires at least one core module.
Material Receiving Station (MRS)
Low-cost station for data entry of raw material.
Advanced Material Transfer Station (ATS)
As the Material Transfer Station, but also allows operators to view material stock and movement.
Material Transfer Station (MTS)
Logs material in and out of locations and used to track location/movement in real-time. Also available for iOS/Android.
Shop Floor Station (SFS)
Operator interface detailing nests to be cut, including features such as part/ply scrapping and re-nesting, feedback to MRP, ply identification on the nest, and much more.
General Purpose Information Station (GPIS)
Read-only viewing of key screens.
Additional Options
Alerts
Allow users to receive automated alerts for common issues such as material expiry, kits approaching cure by date, etc.
Nesting around defects
Obtain maximum efficiency by creating true shapes around defects, which you can then nest tightly around.
Processes
Create unlimited operations and then link them to processes. These can then be associated with Kits as they travel through your facility. As each process is completed this is added to the traceability log, not only giving you location/life tracking, but also detailing every process by all staff.
MS Web Services Support
Provides communication via HTTP or .NET TCP for external systems such as MRP/ERP to send/receive information to CrossTrack for processes such as adding material stock, creating works orders, etc.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is CrossTrack?
A. CrossTrack is a manufacturing suite running on a MS SQL database that delivers automatic order processing together with realtime tracking of materials (rolls or sheets), nests and kits/assemblies. Orders for either individual parts/plies or complete kits/assemblies can be passed to JETCAM Expert for automatic nesting while CrossTrack provides live tracking and status of all orders, materials, plies and kits.Powerful one-click reporting
Q. What are the key benefits of CrossTrack?
A. The benefits seen immediately after installation are
- Instant visibility of orders/material stock/nests/machine workloads,
- Full traceability of location and life of material and kits
- Reduction of errors and reliance on paper
- Time and resource savings
- Ability to provide a common interface across the shopfloor, also linking in external documents (PDFs for digital plybooks, etc)
- Easy and tight integration into existing legacy data systems such as MRP/ERP
- Excellent backbone for Industry 4.0-related requirements
Paper can be massively reduced or eliminated. All data is live across the network, so all staff are working from the same information. Barcode or RFID entry removes the possibility of error, and the need to enter data in different systems is eradicated. CrossTrack can be used as a standalone system but when integrated to existing data systems there is little or no learning curve, as initial data is inserted from current sources. JETCAM’s RCP allows companies to move to true dynamic nesting using JETCAM’s high performance nesting, which alone can often pay for the system within months.
Q. How does CrossTrack compare to JOC?
A. JOC (JETCAM Orders Controller) is JETCAM’s order and assembly/kit management application that allows for fast queueing and placement of orders within JETCAM Expert for nesting. CrossTrack builds on this by providing full traceability of material and cut kits/assemblies in a full multi-user environment.
Q. Which Core Stations would I need?
A. This will depend on a) whether you manufacture with only sheet metal, with composite materials or both, and b) whether you require material life management and/or assembly/kit management.
Q. What additional Stations will I need and how many licenses?
A. With CrossTrack you can purchase as many or few additional stations as required. The licenses run concurrently, rather than being locked to a specific PC, so if you have five licenses of one station it can be used in five locations anywhere within your facility. Mobile versions of stations use the same licenses, so you can log out of a PC and log into an iOS or Android device using the same license. You can keep costs down by identifying locations where only specific operations will be performed, such as material transfer, and only buying the appropriate station for that location.
Q. Who is using CrossTrack?
A. CrossTrack is designed to meet the demands of both sheet and roll cutting, and specifically targeted to address the problems faced by today’s high end composite manufacturers. Both large and small companies are using CrossTrack, such as Bombardier Aerospace, Bell Helicopter, Schiebel Helicopters, and Connova AG.
Q. What is the integration between CrossTrack and JETCAM’s Expert CAM/Nesting software?
A. JETCAM Expert acts as a processing engine - taking queued orders and producing nests on demand. When integrated with JETCAM’s Remote Control Processing (RCP) it acts as a ‘black box’, automatically delivering nests and the related NC code within seconds of receiving order queues. This also provides complete traceability, giving you the ability to identify which roll each individual ply was cut from..
Q. What other integration is possible?
A. CrossTrack can be easily integrated with MRP/ERP systems for managing orders and materials and CAD systems such as Dassault Catia and FiberSIM for Geometry import. CrossTrack can also export laser information for kitting, supporting systems such as Aligned Vision's KitGuide.
Q. How secure is CrossTrack?
A. Although CrossTrack's database can be stored on cloud-based services such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services, many of our customers work in extremely sensitive areas such as defense, therefore selecting internally-housed client-server solution rather than hosting in the cloud. All data is held in an MS SQL database, which can be situated on a private network with further encryption for additional security.
Q. What platforms do your mobile apps support?
iOS and Android.