Dear shop floor, Are you ready for IoT? — Part 1
IoT is the way of life that is influencing and will shape the shop floor of the future
Internet of Things (IoT) has literally taken every sector including manufacturing by storm. Its influence is shaping the industry and it is only going to grow. We are already in the midst of the 4th wave of revolution in manufacturing which is digital and termed as industry 4.0. Check out some of the stats that underline this ‘way of life’ going forward in the manufacturing sector
· As per the Mind Commerce Industrial IoT (IIoT) 2017–2022 report, IIoT will grow at a CAGR of 18.6% between 2017–2022 to ~195 Bn USD from ~83 Bn USD
· APAC region is likely to see the highest growth rate of 24.7%
· Most ICT companies claim 200%+ year-on-year growth in number of IoT connections in the manufacturing sector in the last couple of years
What is the deal with IoT in the manufacturing sector?
Internet of Things (IoT) in general and Machine to Machine (M2M) communication in particular enables physical objects with the help of embedded information and communication technology, to communicate over a network without requiring human intervention. It is the convergence of wireless technologies, electromechanical systems and the Internet. Optimal design and implementation of the same has the potential to revolutionise the manufacturing sector in general and the shop floor in particular. The impact of IoT can benefit various areas of manufacturing value chain ranging from quality, safety and efficiency to new product development and innovation.
The benefits
Better Quality: As quality goes beyond just hygiene in the post-precision era, it is actually a source of competitive advantage. IoT takes the quality game to the next level. Take a CNC machine driven manufacturing process for example. While manufacturing is on, a climate controller determines if it is getting too hot and humid for the materials in the CNC and automatically controls the climate for optimal heat dissipation. Thanks to M2M communication, from the CNC our design goes to quality control to check dimensions, the readings at QC tell us that our tool is starting to get worn in the CNC and needs changed soon. This results in 100% precision and accuracy and even ensures optimal maintenance.
Improved Safety: IoT based monitoring ensures that shop floor environment, devices and individuals pertaining to the shop floor are always in optimally safe condition. Also, while parameters are fed into the system, settings can be optimised further to account for threats in real-time and from external factors. That is the power of the internet combined with instrumentation and control technology. Wearables help in relaying real time information and thereby vastly improving real time response rate to any risk. Smart devices like Bluetooth beacons connected to the cloud based ERP enable operators (like forklift operators, say) to literally ‘see’ around corners for any obstacles or people.
Efficiency & Cost Management like never before: Streamlining processes and increasing efficiency has always been a key prerogative. IoT-enabled tracking not only provides manufacturers with better control of the shop floor, but also enables near real-time tracking of shipments, a differentiator that ensures great efficiency and also flexibility. Thanks to M2M communication, updates from design to shop floor (and back) and finally to market will be faster. Inventory and supply chain management is now tied real time to the factory with changes in schedules now reflecting in hours instead of days. This is mainly thanks to the tracking activity having shifted from paper to mainframes to managers’ mobile phones today.
In a nutshell, IoT and M2M enables you to say goodbye to production and/or market share loss due to shop floor inefficiencies (like misplaced tools or parts), untraceable inventory, slow changes in supply chain management and slow decision making due to tech barriers.
Maintenance 3.0 — Reactive to Preventive to Predictive: While maintenance in the pre-IT era was reactive, with the advent of IT and hence advanced analysis, it moved towards preventive maintenance. With IoT and M2M, precise ad specific remote monitoring and alerts for possible equipment failure — for example vibration, temperature, level or flow outside normal limits — have become possible.
M2M communication enables precision and specificity for predicting failure which is way more actionable than mere human judgment. For example, a concerned wife’s observation would be ‘My husband seems more irritable these days’ but a BP machine would spell it out as ‘Your diastolic BP is 100 — which is fairly high’. Production line monitoring & automation and connected production line systems have enabled manufacturers to move to predictive maintenance, helping to improve resource utilisation and reduce unplanned downtime. Most production-line systems already contain the necessary sensors — it’s just a case of adding connectivity.
Data, data everywhere: Connected devices and systems generate many petabytes of data. Also, IoT enables use of the ocean of relevant data on the internet for improved decision making. Most importantly, this data is available in real time, easy to extract and store as per convenience. Machine optimisation and inventory management can be done on a mobile phone today thanks to the data that has been imported to a spreadsheet and presented in a pivot table!
IoT and M2M seem to have simplified life in the manufacturing sector and the benefits have the potential to take the sector on a spree of unprecedented growth along with profitability. At the same time, no technology is a bed of roses as they come with their set of challenges. Some challenges are generic like fear factor in employees, lack of knowhow, IT infra issues etc. and some very specific to IoT like marrying legacy systems to IoT enabled systems, the journey from data to insights etc. We will explore these and also some mitigating factors and possible measures/solutions in the next part of this story. Stay tuned!
IoT and M2M are just some of the things we offer in the productivity and efficiency improvement suite of our offerings. We also enable organisations to improve customer acquisition and experience and employee engagement through our technology solutions. Check us out on www.zeulantis.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
