• Enhanced visibility of Production Assets and Processes

 With IoT and Industrial IoT, manufacturers can connect the tools and assets in factories and warehouses with essential production equipment and machines, each and all of them running through new technologies that enable efficient tracking and monitoring.

IoT provides engineers a high level of visibility into production operations and the ability to foresee the arrival of issues that may disrupt them. A critical capability of IoT is that it can facilitate ‘Asset Tracking’ – a system to easily locate, track, and monitor essential components of a production facility.

Manufacturing concerns are empowered with the ability to automatically track parts as they move through the assembly process, with the help of smart sensors. Plant managers gain real-time access to production output figures through the connection of operating tools with the machines.

Manufacturers can now leverage the high levels of real-time visibility within plants to identify, understand, and resolve problems through the use of dashboards with IoT-generated data. This brings them faster, more efficient, more accurate, and higher quality production.

• Predictive Maintenance

A major priority of manufacturers is ensuring that assets and factory equipment are in working condition and function smoothly. A single malfunction can disrupt production, which in turn, can cause losses due to unexpected costs on equipment replacement or replacement; more critically, it can lead to delays or cancellations of orders, causing customers’ trust to be breached.

The continual running of machines can help reduce operating expenses and smoothen processes in production. By connecting wireless sensors lodged on all the machines to the internet, managers gain real-time access and visibility to performance, being able to detect early signs of malfunction well before they occur. Moreover, manufacturers benefit immensely from the leveraging of such capabilities towards safer environments and increased equipment life cycles within plants.

• Improved Product Quality

With continuous monitoring of products through the building cycle in place through the use of environmental sensors, manufacturers are empowered with the ability to ensure that their products always meet a high standard of quality. The environmental sensors send back critical back data about conditions of the products, enabling a streamlined monitoring system.

The use of the digital twin greatly enhances performance analysis. Feedback on various processes are analyzed and provided as input into the product design and process design, which in turn enables continual optimization.

• Optimized Supply Chain Management

Manufacturers are seeing supply chain processes grow increasingly complex as they begin to expand their operations on a global scale. IoT allows concerns to monitor critical events across their supply chain processes, bringing them real-time data that tracks assets like trucks, containers, and individual products.

Wireless sensors track and monitor inventories while they move from one location to another in the supply chain, including shipments of supplies for products, right through to the delivery of products in their finished form. Manufacturers gain enhanced visibility into product inventories, having more accurate schedules for material availability, as well as for the shipment of products to customers. Analysis of critical data helps manufacturing enterprises make vast logical improvements by identifying problem areas and resolving them

• Leveraging Digital Twin

Put very simply, Digital Twins are virtual replicas of physical devices, products, and processes, that manufacturers can use to run simulations before they go ahead with actually building and deploying them.

Using perpetual streams of real-time data made possible by IoT, manufacturers can now create a digital twin of any type of product, and at any level, irrespective of what features define it. They can detect bottlenecks sooner and predict outcomes accurately, giving them the opportunity to produce only high quality products that meet their standard, as well enabling them to reduce costs that are normally spent on tracking and recalling products once they are shopped.

Data collected from digital replicas also lets managers analyze the performance of systems under various conditions on-field.

Thus, with a spectrum of potential applications at a manufacturer’s disposal, the five cases for IoT’s potential that we explored could revolutionize Manufacturing as a whole. In order to realize this idea, however, adequate training is required across the board.

MTC is your trusted e-learning partner for IoT, Industry 4.0, and advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) – we are committed to facilitating industry-relevant training for institutions and enterprises, offering end users an interactive E-Learning platform.

As thought-leaders in modern factory technologies, we bring you a range of rich digital learning content that will help empower your employees to equip themselves with the skills to handle today’s dynamic technological environment.

Industry 4.0 is an umbrella term for the complete digital transformation of manufacturing and production, and value creation processes. The term represents a new level in the development of industrial value chain organization and control.

SMART Factory automation is a highly advanced modern-day solution that automates the control and management of manufacturing processes in factories using Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. It covers the following processes in manufacturing:

• Manufacturing (Machining process)

• Inspection & Quality Control

• Assembly

• Raw Material & Finished Good Storage

• Material handling & Transfer Systems

• Digitalization of manufacturing

• Data Management

• Means for data storage, retrieval, manipulation and presentation

• Mechanisms for sensing state and modifying processes

• Algorithms for uniting the data processing component with the sensor/modification component

The SMART Factory solution facilitates the digitization of supply chain processes through the integration of Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things. Industry 4.0 brings together manufacturing, automation and data management, paving the way for intelligent collaboration, monitoring, and process management in real time.

‘Internet of Things’, by its very nature, breaks down the barriers between the physical and digital world. By building a network of physical devices with electronics, software, and sensors embedded in their core, IoT enables collection of vital data that can be analyzed for improved monitoring, organization, and control. Industry 4.0 and IoT are being widely embraced by manufacturing concerns to help smoothen supply chain processes and increase traceability, safety, and productivity, while reducing downtime.

SMART Factory-integrated manufacturing, as a concept, incorporates Information & Communication Technology throughout the manufacturing process, facilitating complete digitization of manufacturing across industries – right from food, chemical, and consumer goods, to automotive and construction, all the way to general engineering.

Greater flexibility in production, improved productivity, and the development of new business models are all realities today thanks to digitization. The future of industries is brimming with more potential – cutting-edge technologies will open doors for new possibilities in both discrete and process industries, to help fulfill the individual requirements of customers.

As smart machines keep growing smarter as they gain access to a wider network of data, factories will ultimately become efficient to the point of absolute productivity. The power of Industry 4.0 lies in its ability to integrate networks of machines towards specific goals, redefining optimization of resources for enterprises in the process.

Industry 4.0 continues to evolve, and we may not see the entire picture until we reach the next stage; nevertheless, enterprises that are embracing its new technologies are seeing immense benefits. At the same time, they are grappling with the question of how to transform their workforce to leverage new opportunities presented by Industry 4.0.

MTC is your reliable e-learning partner for Industry 4.0 – we are committed to facilitating industry-relevant training for institutions and enterprises, offering end users an interactive E-Learning platform.

Employees are empowered with the possibility of self-study – they can choose exciting new Industry 4.0 courses that will help them improve their work and make the best of new opportunities, all the while learning at their own pace. As thought-leaders in modern factory technologies, we bring you a range of essential course material employees to tackle today’s dynamic technological environment. Does this sound like something you could benefit from? Let us know.