Integrations

Pathfinder is not just a standalone software. It can talk to your existing IT and IIOT infrastructure in multiple ways.

Manufacturing Execution Systems

Our customers often need tight integration with their Manufacturing Execution Systems, so Pathfinder knows about work orders at the level of individual workstations. This enables Pathfinder to automatically load the appropriate machine learning model based on the product variation currently being assembled on the line. Often customers also require work order completion and other types of statistical data to automatically be fed into their MES. At the same time, when it comes to MES there’s no one-size-fits-all, and every manufacturer either develops their own MES in-house, or customizes a standard offering. In light of these customer needs, we provide integration services, where our solutions engineers meet the factory IT team in-person and works with them to integrate Pathfinder into their infrastructure.

Additionally, we provide APIs as well as direct integrations into standard MES frameworks including those from Siemens, SAP, and Rockwell Automation. So, in some cases this integration may not be needed. Usually this integration takes 40-60 engineer-hours from our side.

OPC UA

Often customers want to use Pathfinder for more than worker guidance and alerts. They want real digital poka yoke capabilities which can stop an operation physically, e.g. stop a conveyor belt or activate an interlock. In other instances, customers want to connect their existing IoT tooling to Pathfinder and want to incorporate their reading into step completion verification e.g. condition the successful completion of a step upon the right measurement being obtained from a connected vernier caliper, a digital multimeter, or a torque wrench. We support the OPC UA communication protocol which is supported by the majority of digital tooling today, as a native part of the Pathfinder platform. Customers can often set up OPC UA compliant devices in a few clicks using our OPC UA Tags functionality which is a no-code mechanism to connect these devices to Pathfinder.

Plug-And-Play Common Tools

Pathfinder natively provides tight integration with a number of commonly used IoT tools and we are rapidly expanding this coverage to include further devices. As the name suggests, Plug-And-Play functionality means that customers don’t need any custom integration effort or even OPC UA configuration to use these tools. As of today, we have added Barcode scanners, Light Towers, Multimedia Projectors, and a number of different Smart Torque Wrenches. In the case of Barcode scanners, customers can choose product variation being built using a barcode. They can also associate individual steps with Barcodes, so that corresponding scans indicate successful completion of those steps. Finally, they can store barcodes with Trace and Analytics data corresponding to individual assembly cycles. All of this is accomplished without writing a single line of code. Similarly, Light Towers can be set up with a few clicks to provide signals corresponding to general or individual mistakes; and be used to represent multiple Pathfinder stations at the same time.

Single Sign On and Log Audits

Although Pathfinder provides its own secure Identity and Access Management (IAM) system following the best practices enforced by ISO 27001 standards, we also enable customers to use their existing IAM and SSO solutions with Pathfinder. This allows them to centrally disable access when an employee switches jobs and provide them with access privileges based on their needs. Currently we offer Azure Active Directory and Okta support in the platform, but we are rapidly expanding coverage to other SSO solutions as well. Sometimes customers also need real-time access to logs of all activity on their part of the platform. We provide this through both our own access dashboard as well as through IBM’s Security QRADAR SIEM solution