USB sticks or a serial cable, one machine at a time. And to know how far along a job was, you had to walk over to the control and look. That's how it was at Officine Di Giacopo SA — here's the problem, and the custom software we built to solve it.
Precision engineering in Riazzino. Our client well before the shop floor: server, network, telephony and the InfoTime business system. The machines came later — they were the missing piece. digiacopo.ch ↗
At Officine Di Giacopo SA, in Riazzino, the shop floor is the one you find in almost every machine shop in Ticino: machines of different makes and generations, bought over twenty years. Two FANUC machining centres generations apart, two Heidenhains — one of them 5-axis — a lathe and a 1990s mill with nothing but a serial port. Every machine spoke its own language, and none of them spoke to the CAM or to the presetter.
Not a catalogue line-up: what was in the shop, as it was. The oldest control we connected dates from 1998; the newest one runs a 5-axis machine.
| Protocol | On which controls | What travels over it |
|---|---|---|
| FOCAS · network | FANUC, two generations | Programs, in-cycle status, alarms, offsets |
| LSV2 · network | HEIDENHAIN | Klartext programs, tool inventory, alarms |
| RS-232 · serial | Controls with no network port | Program transfer |
It works out the two generations by itself, without anyone having to tell it what it is looking at. Around the machines, the hyperMILL CAM — network folder and tool list — and the Zoller presetter, read straight from its database.
A control that isn't on this list? We look at it, we try it, and we tell you where it stands.
A single executable, installed as a service on the production server they already had. No external database, no client to install on the workstations: you open the browser and you work. And the programs never leave the shop.
It runs as a single executable on the server they already had: no client to install on the workstations, and no recurring fees.
The overview of every machine, the live status of each job (positions, spindle, feed) with the toolpath in 2D and in 3D, and the program archive with its version history.
The path views, 2D or 3D, are a visualisation: they show the path, they do not decide for the operator and it is not a safety system.
The same protocol changes from one generation to the next, and the two don't talk to each other. The application handles both and picks on its own: nobody on the floor notices, and the 1998 control sits on the same page as the 5-axis.
Not every control lets you write everything: on some, the tool table can be read but not touched. Rather than promise the impossible, the limit is stated plainly and worked around with an operator-side flow.
On machines with no network port the connection goes over serial, and the same interface drives that transfer too. The older machines join the same flow, without replacing electronics that have worked well for thirty years.
USB sticks have gone from the daily flow. Every program has a history you can restore, and corrections made at the machine are no longer lost. Tool offsets go from the presetter to the CNC without being typed in again. From the office you can see the state of the shop floor — and it all runs on the hardware they already had, with no recurring fees.
The program built to measure in Riazzino has become a product for machine shops: it reads the machines you already have — including 1990s controls, including the ones with nothing but a serial port — runs on your own server, and reads every program it sends back from the control, to confirm it arrived identical.
Tell us what's on your floor: controls, brands, how many machines. We'll tell you what can be connected and how — no run-around.
