Defining Forward Migration and Backward Compatibility
A 20-year-old laser system that’s still got a lot of life left in it. An obsolete servo that was discontinued in 2013 and no longer available from the manufacturer. A desire to upgrade the servo drives and motors without having to replace the entire control system.
The Challenge
This was the challenge reACTIV Laser Systems brought to automation solutions provider, Power Motion. reACTIV supplies a wide range of industrial laser systems for manufacturing. They needed to replace three Mitsubishi Electric MR-J2 servos with MR-J4 servos. They also wanted to maintain the machine’s existing motion control scheme, so they could shift data from the old system to the new one.
The Solution
Some providers might throw their hands up in a situation like this. But not Power Motion. They strive to support customers and overcome challenges. And let’s face it, what virtually every company wants is to keep their machines running for as long as humanly possible. Working with Mitsubishi Electric helps Power Motion do this for their customers.
The Benefits
Supporting Customers to a Fault
Our distributors and customers will tell you that Mitsubishi Electric puts emphasis into making backward compatibility and forward migration as easy as possible. And while we recommend that manufacturers follow our tested and proven migration path to update their systems, we will always do our best to find a way forward if that’s not the case.