Kontron AIS: Manufacturing solar cells and modules more efficiently – Release v4.2 of the FabEagle®MES Manufacturing Execution System increases efficiency in photovoltaic production

The new version of the Manufacturing Execution System FabEagle®MES offers three important new features that are specifically tailored to the requirements of the dynamically growing production of solar cells and solar modules with production capacities of at least 1 GW. The MES supports the most important steps in production with traceability and process monitoring and thus helps with quality assurance, process optimization and cost reduction.

The new version provides active transport control for configurable material distribution of complex material flow systems in module factories. Routes and process machines are controlled based on product type, quality and status information. In addition to standard processes, this also includes bypass or unloading requirements. This flexibility allows rapid adaptation to changing production requirements and ensures optimal production processes.

The new module error report is a robust standard reporting tool that enables the evaluation of product errors from inspection and rework stations at cell and string level. A heatmap overview allows the data to be visualized by position, error code and frequency. This enables real-time monitoring to quickly identify problem areas in production and initiate improvement measures.

Long-term data storage is essential for the production of solar cells and solar modules. With the innovative data history for mass production based on data lake technology, the data formats have been optimized for easy evaluation with standard toolsets. Combined with quality, tracking and performance data from the systems, this provides the ideal basis for comprehensive data analysis and process control. This not only allows advanced analysis functions to be used, but also ensures compliance with quality and regulatory requirements.