Up to 10 Citizen CNC sliding head automatic lathes with Windows based control system software can now be remotely monitored through unmanned production periods with automatic alarm messaging on alert.

Up to 10 citizen cnc sliding head automatic lathes with Windows based control system software can now be remotely monitored through unmanned production periods with automatic alarm messaging in the event of a problem. Says Geoff Bryant managing director of Citizen's Watford-based UK distributor NC Engineering: 'This system will enable Citizen users, which do not have 24 hour manning of their machine shops, to have the confidence to run around the clock while being able to monitor what is happening in the case of high priority work.' NC Alarm Alert will provide information of the cause of a problem such as coolant low or tool failure through three levels of communications using synthesised speech, mobile phone texting or email alert. These are all configurable by the user to give, for instance, different personnel for each mode of contact and repeat alert at scheduled intervals.

Each machine can also create up to three alert messages in each mode of communication which enables up to nine different people to be contacted.

The system can be configured to limit alerts to certain times of the day, only specified number of alerts from selected machines and options to ignore, for instance, workpiece counter full.

Voice alerts can be acknowledged through the receiving mobile or fixed telephone keypad and shutdown can be achieved by selecting zero.