Today’s Industrial Revolution is digitally transforming manufacturing. This Fourth Industrial Revolution will use electronics and information technology (IT) to further automate production.
Results of a post-election poll of several hundred U.S. manufacturing executives conducted by Deloitte in November 2020 found that more than three-quarters (76%) expect their companies to increase investment in digital initiatives, and to pilot and implement more Industry 4.0 technologies, in the year ahead.
Take a look at the significant events driving industrial progress over time!
Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 predictions - The software and product development perspective
This paper outlines eight key predictions about the evolution of supporting technologies that will allow the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 to become a reality. To make good software, and to mitigate its risks, a new generation of application and system development platforms will evolve from the more mature ALM tool platforms. Unified ALM will represent the fourth era in software development history.
Facts and trends
While the Internet of Things represents an evolution in technology, it has such deep impact on manufacturing practices that it implies a revolution in Industry.
Looking a bit closer, we can already identify some facts in manufacturing that are clear signals of a new era:
Software and communication technologies are part of the game. No longer the paradigm of “this is the input, this is the output, write a piece of code.”
Time is short. Actually shorter. Really, even shorter than that. How to compete with steel when your competitors compete with software features?
Parts are also software. And more and more a valuable corporate asset, no longer an externally built commodity.
The software is buggy. Releasing without defects is simply impossible.
Besides these facts, we perceive the following trends:
Changing locations versus fixed. Manufacturers tend to move their plants frequently.
Modular versus monolithic. Not one single organization but a network of smaller entities (note the Alphabet reorganization of Google in the summer of 2015).
Distributed versus hierarchical. Peer teams collaborating toward the same goal are emerging as an alternative to top-down problem decomposition.
Wireless versus wired. Generally speaking, lightweight infrastructures to support mobility, modularity, and distribution.
“Real and virtual worlds are literally colliding at the juncture of the Internet of Things, embedded software, social networking, and autonomous decision-making. The driving forces today that make Industry 4.0 viable include punctuated innovation, virtualization, shrinking globalization product lifecycles; and burgeoning use of embedded software. The industrial segment is shifting toward digital manufacturing. This has been evidenced by 3D printing, which will eventually enable mass customization in the industrial world” Carolyn Mathas, EDN
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Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) will play a critical role in Industry 4.0 - A guide to manufacturing systems in future factories
What will your manufacturing plants, company and industry look like in the future? No one knows for sure. Yet without a doubt, someone in your company is thinking about this. The answer will be unique to each company and possibly each plant. As has always been the case, there will be many common elements among companies and industries.
We are now mobile, connected and more automated than ever before. So what does that mean to manufacturers? While each company will answer that for themselves, Germany’s Industry 4.0 is one effort to outline what manufacturers can do to compete successfully. Industry 4.0 is a public-private initiative that is gaining interest worldwide and support from other governments. Industry 4.0 paints a vision of smart factories using smart machines and materials to make smart products.
By its nature, an Industry 4.0 implementation will be incremental, not big bang. Manufacturing will still need people and centralized information applications in addition to the new IIoT data for the next several decades. That’s where the systems that manage all that data, and the people, processes, products and machines that generate it – manufacturing operations management (MOM), or the next evolution of manufacturing execution systems (MES) – will play a critical role.
MOM is needed to:
Store, aggregate, correlate and transmit production and IIoT data
Share information for rapid order and new product cycles
Ensure and enforce quality processes and analysis
Automate track, trace and genealogy for compliance
Monitor performance with manufacturing intelligence
Keep plants nimble for change
Act as a proxy for smart products and ensure data flow for devices and machines that are not smart
Business reason must rule
“Automation is not the holy grail to fix problems. You still have to identify what the business problem is you are trying to solve. You have to make sure that you are automating good processes.” Mark Remson Vice President, Information Technology, Applications NXP Semiconductors
Elements of Industry 4.0 for innovation industries
Most companies are not yet fully aware of what Industry 4.0 entails, so they cannot predict what it will mean for their business. To the degree that smart machines, materials and products become available, an enormous influx of new data into the system is likely to result. If the information infrastructure is ready, this data can add value and granularity to process understanding, root-cause analysis and decision making that is hard to envision today.
This is likely to elevate the need for six capabilities that enable the primary goal of faster response time.
Speed
Business needs to rely on speed. Whether it’s new product introduction, engineering and component changes, customer requests, or process improvement for quality or cost, it must be done quickly and flawlessly. With the complexity of their products, processes and supply chains – not to mention regulatory compliance requirements – speed can be a real challenge.
Automated controls
Automation is one way innovative companies address speed and complexity challenges. This includes investing in smart, IIoT-enabled machines and controls that allow equipment to provide real-time information on the process and their condition. It may also include IIoT on devices, materials and products.
Connection
Even a brilliant machine needs to have a sound information structure to receive data if it is to benefit a company’s performance. It would otherwise suffer as an island of automation, only delivering local benefit at best. Disconnected islands of automation that focus on optimizing the local plant can often hurt overall performance. For example, maximizing the throughput and speed of a machine that feeds a slower operation can simply generate additional work-in-process (WIP) inventory without increasing final production rates.
Insight
Ideally, each machine’s data helps create an overall picture of plant health. It is this insight that delivers better business results. Decision makers in each area of the plant and the company gain not just data but understanding. Those aha moments are the foundation for effective innovation.
Effective action
Once decisions are made about how to respond, the company must take swift, coordinated and confident action. The vision of Industry 4.0 is that routine activity can occur by using IIoT for materials, machines and products with little human interaction. However, the unplanned and unexpected will require innovative responses that create a competitive advantage. This requires not only analytics, but will also involve plant-wide and enterprise-level decision makers.
Agility regardless of location
Many companies now strive to design, build and deliver products anywhere to enable faster local response with standardized and effective processes. Some companies are moving to local production. Others, such as medical device maker Stryker Corporation, are closing smaller plants to create highly flexible mega-plants to build a wider array of products with economies of scale. In this complex global undertaking, companies must control the flow of both products and information.
This requires strong systems for not only the design-and-build aspects, but also for supply chain and overall product data accessibility and analysis.
As a result, companies in the innovation industries must automate information tasks with application software as well. In most innovation-oriented companies, each level of the International Society of Automation (ISA-95) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC 62264) models are already heavily populated with applications. Our experience suggests that most companies that have modern software will add to rather than replace these data-rich applications.
What’s next?
“ We are starting global expansion, looking at manufacturing supply chain strategy. There are two things we’re focused on: Selling more of the right products and/or reducing costs of current products. For this, we are looking to implement MES around the world.” Mark Lincoln Vice President, Global Operations Terumo Cardiovascular
Solution brief to manufacturing systems in future factories Download the paper here →
Industry 4.0 demands every company plan for its digitalization journey and the associated process improvements to compete in the future market. Rapid technology advancements in multiple frontiers like design and manufacturing automation, product design and manufacturing simulations, model-based design and engineering, Internet of Things (IoT), etc., are replacing legacy technologies. To know how to best invest your money, plan your time and determine what to focus on now and in future, you need a strategy and a digitalization roadmap.
The benefits of a digitalization roadmap:
Prepare a tailored, multi-phase process-based digitalization road-map that provides an Industry 4.0 context for continued process improvements
Learn industry trends and their implications for your business
Improve future business execution by defining cross-domain scenarios and process flow
Align possibilities with stakeholder business priorities
Understand best practice business processes and enabling technologies
Create a solid business case for digitalization that supports your strategy
Applications
See an example of Industry 4.0 – the Fraunhofer Future Packaging Line. The Fraunhofer display featured a concept of the world’s first open, multi-vendor, IoT-connected surface mount technology (SMT) line, demonstrating the technology and the mutually beneficial business model opportunities that arise from IoT connectivity.
Successful IoT in electronics manufacturing
