Shopfloor Data Collection for Solar Cell Production

PROJECT

Solar Cell Production Efficiency Enhanced
with Shopfloor Data Collection System

BP Solar International is one of the world's largest solar power companies. For more than 15 years they have been a leader in the design, manufacture and supply of advanced photovoltaic power systems.

BP Solar offers customers a complete integrated service, from design through to the manufacture and supply of solar cells and modules, custom designed batteries, power control electronics and load equipment.

BP Solar uses various high volume processes to produce a range of products with its conventional cell technology. The completed cells are electrically tested and graded against calibrated references which maintains BP Solar's cell quality to internationally agreed standards.

At BP Solar's Sydney production site there was a requirement to install a Shopfloor Data Collection System (SFDCS). The requirement was for a computer based shopfloor data collection system that allowed realtime monitoring and reporting of production processes in the cell manufacture department.

Within the cell manufacturing department there were two existing Cell Test PCs. These were connected to two stand-alone Test Cell Units used for monitoring the solar cell test data.

The SFDCS was required to:

Dynamically collect data from the existing Cell Test PCs
Provide a realtime display of that data
Provide a supervisor with the facility to update stored data
Provide a supervisor with the facility to produce reports of collected data.

CSE Technology was contracted to design, supply, develop, test and commission the SFDCS.

The system collects data and statistics from the test machines and produces a variety of production graphs and reports. The Test Cell Units automatically measure certain solar cell parameters. A specific purpose terminal server program was used to prompt for and collect operator entered data from the Cell Test PCs. This data is then transferred to a central database.

Database forms were created to continuously monitor and display data according to requirements. A number of real-time and historical reports and graphs were produced to provide the supervisor with the essential data and presentation format needed to allow quick and easy analysis of the production data.

Data collected and presented for analysis consists of:

Realtime data: Yield, Electrical and PowerBands
Batch Historical data: Yield, Electrical, Efficiency and Table of values
Production Run Historical data: Yield, Electrical and Power Bands.

Using this system, supervisors and management are able to monitor the Cell parameters as each batch is processed. Previously this was done on a daily basis.

Any deviation from standard performance can be quickly identified and steps taken to restore production to its normal levels. This has led to higher yield, increased production and reduced material wastage.