As COVID-19 gripped the world, the associated factory shutdowns drove home a central truth: A black swan event such as the pandemic can bring the supply chain to its knees. Manufacturing companies especially struggled with maintaining a balance between keeping employees safe and production going.
As the dust has settled and, eventually, the pandemic moves into the rearview mirror, the takeaway message for many enterprises is that digitization will help mitigate the extreme negative effects of such an event in the future.
Manufacturing and the Promise of Industry 4.0
The premise of digitization is that most processes will feed on data – from machines, vendors, inventory and ERP software, and more – and use it to continuously optimize production. Robotics and automation feeding on artificial intelligence, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and machine learning will keep the factory running.
In such a manufacturing loop, humans work alongside collaborative robots and as interventionists only when a glitch requires human attention. Since Industry 4.0 processes are self-correcting, and optimized using data, waste and downtime are kept to a minimum and on pace with rising or decreasing demand for goods.
Around the world, examples of large factories running on near-continuous loops abound. The Nokia production plant in Oulu, Finland is such an example, a factory so advanced that the World Economic Forum designated it a “Advanced Fourth Industrial Revolution Lighthouse,” a guiding beacon for the rest of the industry.
Democratizing Industry 4.0
While near-continuous and optimized automation in manufacturing is the promised land, the problem is that companies are on different levels of digital maturity. Examples like Nokia exist, but so do businesses which still rely on pen and paper for most tasks on the production floor.
The prescription for companies is to evaluate all assets and map out a custom journey that delivers the benefits of Industry 4.0.
Suppliers and procurement specialists are crucial in this equation. Take the promise of data, for example. The biggest allure of Industry 4.0 is that we can harness data from machines and make them talk. We achieve this by outfitting machines with IIoT sensors, corralling all the sensor data and reading the data “tea leaves” generated, to understand what’s coming down the pike.
Applying this IIoT-driven process to the manufacturing industry will demand a supplier who understands the components necessary for each of the following steps:
- Sensors that can measure important data from machines
- A mesh network capable of aggregating all the data gathered from machines
- A cloud network, housing machine-learning algorithms, that acts on this data and advises on further action
The Data Challenges
Understanding how to outfit machines with sensors (and which machines to choose) and connecting data flow to RF modules or ethernet communication modules will be key to harness the potential of new technologies.
And manufacturers face additional headwinds. The standards for IIoT-generated data are often not uniform – it’s not enough for data to be generated, it has to be in a format algorithms can actually read and process.
Retrofitting machines with sensors sounds like a neat idea, but you can easily start drowning in data if you don’t know which key performance indicators you want to measure, and why. A sensor attached to a machine can measure vibration and temperature variables, for example, so understanding what the vibration profile of a machine looks like before it fails further down the line will be key to nipping problems down the road.
The sensors themselves have to run on minimal energy. In large enterprises, IIoT devices in field stations can’t afford to have batteries that need to be replaced every few weeks or even months.
Finally, IIoT devices come in a vast assortment with programmable instructions from manufacturers. When integrating them into IT systems, suppliers and engineers can ensure that the boundary between operational technology (OT) and IT is secure. Cybersecurity risks compound with the increasing number of threat vectors that IIoT devices deliver, so it’s key to appreciate and mitigate those risks.
Suppliers are the crucial component in harvesting the potential of Industry 4.0. Engineers study the rewards and challenges of new technologies and work to secure the fort while harvesting the low-hanging fruit first.
Above all, suppliers understand two primary aspects of work with technology: the field is ever-changing, and you start with the basics first. Systems need to be configured toward an open platform so newer technologies coming down the pike can simply plug and play into current machine systems. Companies can’t afford to retrofit creaky systems today only to discover that they need a complete overhaul tomorrow.
The pandemic has accelerated the need to embrace digitization if we’re to handle the next event with minimal disruption. Understanding how and where to embrace that digitization — and implementing a structured strategy — is key to competitive success in the COVID-19 landscape. Such a considered approach will go a long way in keeping employees safe and production humming.
Statements of fact and opinions expressed in posts by contributors are the responsibility of the authors alone and do not imply an opinion of the officers or the representatives of TTI, Inc. or the TTI Family of Companies.
