Iot refers to the connectivity of just about everything! Be it your devices at home or even your vehicle, IoT is what connects them to the manufacturer as well as you. May sound mysterious, but it’s true.
The technology actually has its roots in a world that predates the rise of smart appliances: Industrial manufacturing. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) “takes networked sensors and intelligent devices and puts those technologies to use directly on the manufacturing floor, collecting data to drive AI and predictive analytics.”
Deepak Pohekar, executive director of ZF Wind Power Coimbatore, says, “It is imperative to understand that digital transformation is reinventing companies and their factories. In manufacturing, it requires the seamless integration of both information and operations technology.”
According to Transcendent, the possibilities are almost endless when it comes to how IoT, AR, VR, and machine learning can help facilities with energy savings, labor savings, employee safety, and more. IIoT is changing the manufacturing industry. One of the many benefits of IIoT is how it can improve operating efficiencies. For example, if a machine goes down, connected sensors can determine where the issue is occurring and trigger a service request to an engineer. IIoT can also work together with an EAM CMMS where engineers can receive these generated requests on their mobile device and immediately go to the location to repair or assign it to another engineer near the asset.
Know them well
Growing numbers of manufacturing businesses are looking to digitise their operations to ensure adaptability and survival. Right now, manufacturing companies need better insight into their business, and greater ability to react quickly to changes both internal and external to their operations. Digitalisation can help your company identify gaps that need to be bridged, rectify issues before they happen and adapt quickly to changes in workforce resources, supply chain capabilities and customer requirements.
DELMIA from Dassault Systèmes provides an array of dedicated applications for industries, combined with an environment for knowledge-sharing, process and resource management, and the ability to capture and implement best practices for manufacturing. DELMIA PLM technology allows manufacturers to interact with factory processes early in the design stage and months before actual production commitment.
Kiran Divekar, director, DELMIA, Dassault Systèmes, says, “Today, manufacturers are using DELMIA Enterprise MES, or MOM, to transform their operations by automating, executing and managing the performance of business processes across the value chain. With DELMIA MES technology, you can achieve end-to-end integration of supply chain operations, full product traceability, real-time production management, and globally standardized manufacturing processes. Thanks to a single view of manufacturing processes and a single version of the truth, DELMIA solutions enable enterprises to elevate their operational excellence, creating more value not only for themselves but for their customers.
Many believe that IIoT and Industry 4.0 are synonymous. They’re not. Think of IIoT as big picture – manufacturing as a noun. Think of Industry 4.0 as making things – manufacturing as a verb. Both however are contributing to the area of mass customized manufacturing. At a high-level the concept is to have a factory capable of creating “batch of 1” products in mass production and at full speed. Today few products, like high-end vehicles, are customizable and made to spec.
ZF uses some interesting tools for IoT and predictive maintenance. Pohekar lists them as:
*DAMS (Digital Autonomous maintenance system): This enables the operator to check condition of the machines on a web-based tool & any abnormality is communicated directly to the concern Engineer for correction. The Status of all the machines is visible on a dashboard.
*BMS (Building Management System): This system is based on SCADA and monitors all the Parameters including compressed air pressure , chiller, HT Voltage , HVAC , climate controls etc , & abnormality if any is shown visually on the dashboard as well as through an auto alert message to the concerned engineer.
*Machine Condition Monitoring: The tool enables, monitoring & logging critical data parameters with time stamp, it is helpful in analyzing trends along with the condition of the machine. Machine Condition Monitoring also creates an abnormality alert on the dashboard along with an alert message to the concerned engineers
*Element Health Monitoring: It is a tool that is used to predict the element life and alert the concerned engineer to service and extend the life of elements or to replace it. The tool is useful to avoid machine downtime and ensure machine availability.
Seeing into the future
If predictions are correct, by 2021 25 billion devices will be connected to the internet of things (IoT). Here, Marek Lukaszczyk, European marketing manager at gearbox manufacturer, WEG explains where geared motor maintenance fits into this paradigm. PdM is a technique that relies on condition-monitoring equipment to evaluate the operational performance in real-time. By merging the condition-based diagnosis with predictive formulas, PdM creates a precise tool for collecting and assessing data.
This idea is based on anticipating the future of a system, highlighting potential failures that may occur and the maintenance actions that need to be attended to. A data-driven approach uses predictive analytics and algorithms based on real-time data to identify the specific issue — many of which do not present any physical signs of damage.
In some cases, companies can invest a lot of resources and time in carrying out maintenance checks but lack the data to know if their strategy is effective or even addressing their main concerns. But there is a better alternative.
Meenu Singhal, VP, industry business, Schneider Electric India, says, ” Our smart factories are designed as “lighthouses” that comprehensively deploy a wide range of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. Through our Smart Factory programme we have created a ‘template’ for other businesses to emulate, thereby enabling them to integrate innovative technologies, IT solutions, and data analytics into their manufacturing operations.”
Its Bengaluru smart factory (Hosur facility) is completely automated and boasts agile management and Process Efficiency, asset performance management, empowered operator and energy efficiency and reliability. We believe that connectivity between products, machines, and people, collaboration between people, and collaboration across the complete industrial value chain are the enabling factors of digitization and we are the mainstay of these smart facilities. This all is done while complying with cyber security norms in the Connected products, Edge Controls and analytical level, giving an complete cyber secured architecture.
Some companies use a smarter approach is condition-based maintenance to mitigate operational impact due to shutdowns/ failures. This approach drives maintenance actions based on the estimated condition of the machine that is typically monitored through inspection or using data from embedded sensors. This has the benefits that maintenance will happen before failure and only takes place when necessary.
Pohekar says, “Another benefit of condition monitoring is that it allows you to plan spare parts and time required for rectification of the fault. Additionally, in order to mitigate risks we have set up different alert thresholds before reaching close to the failure. This preempting of failure is possible due to data analysis. E.g. if the temperature of bearings should not be more than 100 degrees then the first alarm goes off when the temp touches 45, the second one at 50 so on and so forth.”
The center of IoT digital intelligence is wireless technology, which allows all types of devices to interact and function without intervention of human beings. Almost every physical object can be considering an IoT device when it has connected to the internet. In addition, they utilize wireless technology for operating and communicating without human participation. Clearly, IoT Development Companies are responsible for major changes in life that we have hardly imagined. It is also key to building and streamlining productive, and affordable systems architecture in the automation industry.