Glossary · System coordination, integration and orchestration
Machine coordination
Also known as: Inter-machine coordination
German: Maschinenkoordination
In industrial automation, machine coordination is the exchange of states, requests and permissions between machines so that they work together as a line or cell without collisions, starvation or blocking. It is implemented through handshakes, shared state models and a supervisory or peer-to-peer logic.
- System integration
In one sentence
Machine coordination aligns the states and actions of several machines so they work together as a line or cell without collisions or blocking.
Example
A filler and a capper coordinate through ready and request signals so the capper only accepts a bottle when the filler has released it and the star wheel is in position.
How it applies
- Engineering: Choose a coordination scheme early: a Supervisory controller that directs all machines, or peer-to-peer Machine handshakes between neighbors. Document the signals and state models each machine exposes.
- Commissioning: Test coordination under disturbances such as a jam, an emergency stop on one machine or a restart after a power loss, not only in the normal cycle.
- Operation: Good coordination shows up as fewer Starvation states and less Upstream blocking; bad coordination causes micro-stops.
- Documentation: Describe how a stop or fault on one machine affects the others, which modes can be combined and how operators restart the line in a defined order.
Machine coordination vs. machine orchestration
Coordination is the mutual alignment of machines, often through direct handshakes. Machine orchestration means a central instance decides which machine does what and when. Many lines combine both: orchestration for orders and recipes, coordination for the cycle-level transfer of parts.