Introduction

The Cycle Analyzer application is a powerful analytical tool that enables users to view, analyze and troubleshoot machine performance by comparing the operation histograms for selected metrics of individual machine cycles. This article explains how to access and use the functions and capabilities of the Cycle Analyzer application.  

Topics covered in this article

This article contains the following topics:

• Accessing the Cycle Analyzer
  
  • From the All Machines Page
  • From the Machine Overview Page
• Cycle Analyzer Layout and Functions
  
  • Page View Functions
  • Cycles Time Range Display Area
    
    • Time Range Display Start/End
    • Timeline Navigation Buttons
    • Cycle Event Timeline and Histogram Display
• Machine Cycle Analysis Using the Cycle Analyzer
  • Identifying Cycles for Analysis
  • Selecting Cycles for Analysis
  • Selecting Available Metrics
  • Cycle Analysis Example

Accessing the Cycle Analyzer

You can access the Cycle Analyzer for a machine from the following pages in MachineMetrics:

• All Machines page
• Overview page for an individual machine

The following sections explain how to access the Cycle Analyzer for a machine from each of these locations, assuming you are already logged in to MachineMetrics.

From the All Machines Page

To access the Cycle Analyzer from the All Machines page, do the following:

1. From the Current Shift Dashboard page, click Machines  from the main application menu to open the All Machines page.
   
   
   
   
2. Click the "ellipse" menu (---) associated with the machine you want to view, and select Cycle Analyzer as highlighted below. 
   
   

From the Machine Overview Page

To access the Cycle Analyzer from an individual machine page, do the following:

1. Open the All Machines page as described in the preceding section.
2. Click on the desired machine to view the Overview page for that machine.
3. From the Overview page, click the application menu and select Cycle Analyzer as highlighted below.
   
   

Cycle Analyzer Layout and Functions

When a user first accesses the Cycle Analyzer application page, the Cycles Time Range Display Area will display all cycle events the machine has completed during the time period covered by the start/end times. Each cycle completed by the machine during the selected time period is represented in the cycle event timeline by a black dot.

The following figure shows the general layout of the Cycle Analyzer application page with three cycles selected for comparison with the Path Position metric.

The following sections present how to use the functions provided in the Cycle Analyzer application page.

Page View Functions

The following figure highlights the Cycle Analyzer functions for modifying the application page view.

The page view functions are described below.

• Machine Menu: Click this menu to select and view the Cycle Analyzer for a different machine.
• Application Menu: Click this menu to access a different Machines application for the current machine.
• Date/Time Menu: Click the date/time menu field to open the calendar tool used to set the date and start time for the cycle event timeline to display.

Cycles Time Range Display Area

The following figure highlights the Cycle Analyzer application functions in the Cycles Time Range display area.

The Cycles Time Range display area of the Cycle Analyzer application provides the following:

• Time range display start/end
• Timeline navigation buttons
• Cycle event timeline and histogram display for selected metrics

Time Range Display Start/End

The time range displays two hours of cycles based on the selected date and time.

Timeline Navigation Buttons

Click the timeline navigation buttons to go forward (later) or back (earlier) along the cycle event timeline one hour at a time.

Cycle Event Timeline and Metric Histogram Display

When you select a cycle, a histogram will display that graphs how the machine operation proceeded for the selected metric during that cycle. See Machine Cycle Analysis Using the Cycle Analyzer for more information.

Machine Cycle Analysis Using the Cycle Analyzer

MachineMetrics users can use the Cycle Analyzer compare cycles that are unusually slow or unusually fast with cycles that have a more normal or expected completion time, and analyze the machine operation based on the pattern of activity for selected metrics during a cycle. This section provides some general guidelines for using the Cycle Analyzer to analyze machine cycles as well as an example analysis.

Identifying Cycles for Analysis

The distance between the cycle event dots on the timeline indicates the relative length of time that the cycle took to complete the operation. The figure below highlights examples of slow, fast, and normal cycles.

Selecting Cycles for Analysis

When you select a cycle, the following occurs:

• The cycle event dot will be highlighted in a color that is assigned based on the order of cycle selection.
• A Cycle [#] icon/button will display with a number that indicates the cycle's order of selection.
• The histogram for the selected metric and cycle will display.
• Both the Cycle [#] button and the lines in the histograms are correspondingly color-coded with the cycle event dot to match the selected cycle order as shown in the following figure.

Note the following additional considerations for selecting cycles for analysis:

• Users can select a maximum of 5 cycles for comparison.
• The histogram timeline will automatically expand to encompass the time duration of the longest selected cycle. If the longest selected cycle is significantly longer than the other selected cycles, histogram detail in the other cycles will be compressed and may become difficult to interpret.
• To remove a cycle and its histogram from the graph display, you can click again on the cycle event dot or click the X on the right side of the Cycle [#] button.
• To temporarily deselect and remove the cycle and its histogram from the display, you can click on the Cycle [#] part of the button. The button will appear grayed out as shown below. You can then click on the Cycle [#] part again to add the cycle and histogram back to the display.
  

Selecting Available Metrics

To select a metric for cycle analysis, click the Graph Metric menu below the cycle event timeline. A menu will display listing all the available metrics. The metrics available for selection will depend on the machine capability to provide the metric data through the MachineMetrics integration.

Cycle Analysis Example

The following figure shows an example of cycle analysis for the Path Position metric of a machine. For display purposes, the Cycles Time Range area of the Cycle Analyzer page shown in the figure has been split into left and right sides.

Note the following about the above example:

• Cycle 1 is a very long cycle that does not start its Path Position activity until long after the other cycles have completed theirs. Once it starts, the operation seems to follow the same or very similar Path Position pattern as Cycles 2 & 3.
• Cycle 4 immediately precedes Cycle 1 and is a very short cycle that completes its Path Position activity long before the two "normal" cycles (Cycles 2 & 3). Cycle 4 seems only to complete the first part of the Path Position activity before terminating. 
• The same short cycle/long cycle pattern repeats itself twice later in the cycle events timeline.
• If you look closely, you will see that almost exactly the same number of "normal" cycles complete between the short cycle/long cycle pattern repetition (14 in the first case and 15 in the second).
• If you hover over certain points in the histogram, you will see the time represented by that point and the metric value at that time. In the above example, Cycle 4 completed at 10:18:43 AM and the Path Position was 14.3307. You can use this information to further investigate the issue using other MachineMetrics tools like the Standard Timeline and Diagnostic Timeline applications.

If you have any questions about machine cycle analysis using the Cycle Analyzer application, please contact your MachineMetrics Customer Success Manager.