warehouse automation in ADA? robots?

warehouse automation in ADA? robots?

[Rabican]

is ada used at all in robots and warehouse automation?

Re: warehouse automation in ADA? robots?

[Björn Lundin]

Den 2019-02-25 kl. 23:32, skrev Rabican:
> is ada used at all in robots and warehouse automation?
> 

Robots, I don't know.
Warehouse Automation, not very much when looking at
low level control of machinery.

I've been in that business for 20 years and never heard of
any vendor (Vanderlande/Knapp/Daifuku/Dematic/Swisslog ) whatever to use 
Ada in their systems. Most of them use Siemens PLC.

one usually divides a warehouse system stack in different layers
ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP/IFS/Axapta/Navision/Movex)
       The system to place orders in - in this context

WMS - Warehoue Management System (Astro/Manhattan/Red Prarie/SAP WMS)
       The system to divide order to pick routes and transports

WCS - Warehouse Control System
       The system plan and carry out transports in automatic equipment.
       Usally the WMS manages the forklift drivers

       Sattmate and vendor specific ones (All
       companies above has one but Sattmate is the only (or one of the
       few) non-vendor Control system that I know of (in Europe)

MFC/PLC usally Siemens PLC but every vendor has their own protocol and
       rules how to program the machines


When it comes to WCS, that is the layer that controls the traffic, and 
priorities which tote/pallet whatever to move, there is one system 
written entirely in Ada. Sattmate.
However that is being transferred to c#

It is really sad that there are not more Ada presence in this world

-- 
Björn

Re: warehouse automation in ADA? robots?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 2019-02-26 10:14, Björn Lundin wrote:

> I've been in that business for 20 years and never heard of
> any vendor (Vanderlande/Knapp/Daifuku/Dematic/Swisslog ) whatever to use 
> Ada in their systems. Most of them use Siemens PLC.

We use Ada in that field. Much of our business is to replace SPS (not 
only from Siemens) or to integrate SPS feeding it with data from 
alternative sources or taking data from SPS. Usually it is higher end 
custom solutions where SPS and the peripheral it supports do not scale 
up to the performance requirements, data flow, the IT infrastructure. 
When the vendor lock hits back, the customer forgets its timeless love 
to SPS and get ready to consider something better...

> It is really sad that there are not more Ada presence in this world

I agree.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: warehouse automation in ADA? robots?

[Jesper Quorning]

On Tuesday, February 26, 2019 at 10:14:19 AM UTC+1, björn lundin wrote:

> WCS - Warehouse Control System
>        The system plan and carry out transports in automatic equipment.
>        Usally the WMS manages the forklift drivers
> 
>        Sattmate and vendor specific ones (All
>        companies above has one but Sattmate is the only (or one of the
>        few) non-vendor Control system that I know of (in Europe)

I have heard about a system from the swedish compagny ConSafe using Ada extensively for WCS. Free from my memory they are upgrading from Ada 83 to Ada 2000-something in the Copenhagen area..

Maybe somone reading CLA can confirm or reject this..?


        Jesper.

Re: warehouse automation in ADA? robots?

[Björn Lundin]

On 2019-02-27 11:28, Jesper Quorning wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 26, 2019 at 10:14:19 AM UTC+1, björn lundin wrote:
> 
>> WCS - Warehouse Control System
>>        The system plan and carry out transports in automatic equipment.
>>        Usally the WMS manages the forklift drivers
>>
>>        Sattmate and vendor specific ones (All
>>        companies above has one but Sattmate is the only (or one of the
>>        few) non-vendor Control system that I know of (in Europe)
> 
> I have heard about a system from the swedish compagny ConSafe using Ada extensively for WCS. Free from my memory they are upgrading from Ada 83 to Ada 2000-something in the Copenhagen area..
> 
> Maybe somone reading CLA can confirm or reject this..?
> 
> 
>         Jesper.
> 

I can. I am Chief Architect for Automation at Consafe Logistics SE.
The product you refer to is the one I referred to as sattmate above.
I am the chief developer/maintainer of it as well

It is a stand-alone WCS system, entirely in Ada. Was in Ada 83,
But during the years, som OO has snuck in and some 2012 features
like contracts in some low level packages (by Jacob Sparre Andersen)
and inheritance of Ada.Finalization ,
use of Ada.Directories
and Ada.Containers.*
and for x of container loops (by me)

There was also a WMS product in Ada, with which the WCS is related to
That one is pronounced End-of-Life 2021
I was one of the developers in that product too.

But we were never upgrading from Ada83 to Ada whatever as such.
When we found new features in the language, we introduced them.
Like the Ada.Directories package. Meant that I could throw out
different home-brewed directory handling on Windows and AIX/Linux and
replace it with the standard package.

The backwards compatibility of the language is great, so we were/are
never afraid of using a new compiler on old code. Had been done lots of
times, and never failed.

And yes, for the WMS, we have many customers in the Copenhagen area.
Actually, I think you'd have a hard time to find a grocery store that is
not handled by us, in Denmark. (I think there are some, but the main
ones runs Ada)

-- 
--
Björn