Industry 4.0 manufacturing is becoming a topic of increasing importance. More and more manufacturers are realizing not just how much money they will save from implementing industry 4.0 in their manufacturing business. But how much money they will lose if they don’t garner a plan to accommodate industry 4.0 best practices.
I’m assuming you might be fairly new to industry 4.0, so let’s start first by defining what this is.
According to Wikipedia:
Industry 4.0 is a name given to the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. It includes cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing and cognitive computing. Industry 4.0 is commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution.
There are four design principles in Industry 4.0. These principles support companies in identifying and implementing Industry 4.0 scenarios.[1]
Interconnection: The ability of machines, devices, sensors, and people to connect and communicate with each other via the Internet of Things (IoT) or the Internet of People (IoP)
Information transparency: The transparency afforded by Industry 4.0 technology provides operators with vast amounts of useful information needed to make appropriate decisions. Inter-connectivity allows operators to collect immense amounts of data and information from all points in the manufacturing process, thus aiding functionality and identifying key areas that can benefit from innovation and improvement.
Technical assistance: First, the ability of assistance systems to support humans by aggregating and visualizing information comprehensively for making informed decisions and solving urgent problems on short notice. Second, the ability of cyber physical systems to physically support humans by conducting a range of tasks that are unpleasant, too exhausting, or unsafe for their human co-workers.
Decentralized decisions: The ability of cyber physical systems to make decisions on their own and to perform their tasks as autonomously as possible. Only in the case of exceptions, interferences, or conflicting goals, are tasks delegated to a higher level.
In other words, modern information and communication technologies like cyber-physical system, big data analytics and cloud computing, will help early detection of defects and production failures, thus enabling their prevention and increasing productivity, quality, and agility benefits that have significant competitive value.
But we can’t talk about industry 4.0 in manufacturing without touching on automation.
Automation is the technology by which a process or procedure is performed with minimal human assistance. Automation or automatic control is the use of various control systems for operating equipment such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers and heat treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering and stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles with minimal or reduced human intervention.
Automation covers applications ranging from a household thermostat controlling a boiler, to a large industrial control system with ten of thousands of input measurements and output control signals. In control complexity, it can range from simple on-off control to multi-variable high-level algorithms.
Overall, if you’re a manufacturer and you not using industry 4.0 best practices, you could be missing out on huge potential.
