This study was written on behalf of ESAB Research and Development department, in Laxå Sweden. One of ESAB’s product areas is developing various welding systems.Today if ESAB’s customers experience a problem with one of their welding systems they call ESAB’s service center. If the problem seems to have been caused by software, or if it requires log files to be analyzed, ESAB needs a way to get this system information from the customer’s welding system to ESAB’s employees.
One of the goals with this project study was to perform an analysis answering how the system information should be sent, stored and what unit in the customer’s welding system that should send it. Another goal was to implement the solution that the analysis presented.The analysis shows that WeldPoint in combination with a web service is the best way to send the system information from the customer’s welding system. WeldPoint is a PC control and log software connected to the customer’s welding system.
A web service provides a service interface enabling clients to interact with a web server. Clients communicate with the webservice using HTTP, this means that clients can easily communicate across firewalls and other network obstacles.The thesis work resulted in three different applications written in C#.NET. The first application is a simple form called WeldPoint Remote Support (WRS). This form extracts customer information, welding system information and log files from the customer and the customer’s welding system. All this information is called a case. The case is received by ESAB using the second application, WeldPoint Web service (WWS). WWS stores the received case in a database.
The third application is called WeldPoint Remote Support Center (WRSC). This application is used by the ESAB employee’s to view the case sent from the customer’s welding system.The above implementation has been tested and supports a robust and secure way to send andview the system information from the customer’s welding system. The conclusions showed that all goals and requirements set by ESAB were met.
Source: Linköping University
Author: Öh, Rickard
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