What will the factories of the future look like thanks to the Industrial Internet of Things?
Although smart homes, smart cars and smart infrastructure are in the distant future for many, the fact remains that the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has the potential to be implemented in today's production chains as well as in logistics systems. According to experts, the best thing about it is that the benefits would not be long in coming.
Industry 4.0 and IIoT
The Internet of Things promises a change in the way we communicate with our environment, which also implies a revolution in the way we consume and work. Known as Industry 4.0 in Europe and Smart Manufacturing in the United States, the fourth industrial revolution that has led to the Industrial Internet of Things as the new wave of change. Recall that the first major change in industrial reality came with the first revolution in the 18th century, the changes in the manufacturing system in the 19th century and, finally, the improvements in efficiency brought about by electronics and automation in the 20th century. Since equipment, factories and new business models became smarter and more connected, we have seen a great deal of optimization at the root of the vast majority of companies. Data can now be shared across the enterprise in real time across all layers and areas, reducing the time required for the consumer to enjoy your product.
Industrial Internet of Things: From Lean Manufacturing to Smart Manufacturing
The Lean Manufacturing philosophy has long been the key to achieving greater efficiency in production processes. The first to use this new way of approaching work was the Japanese automaker Toyota, which decided to identify and eliminate processes that were wasting time and money in the assembly line and logistics system.
What has Industry 4.0 done to eclipse the good results achieved so far by Lean Manufacturing? Well, precisely by making use of new technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things, the Big Data and the Intelligent Automation.
In addition to reducing costs, Industry 4.0 offers added value thanks to the so called "Industry 4.0". Smart manufacturing with faster time to market, real and more efficient product customization, and the ability to offer superior quality that matches consumer demands.
We must not forget that, in addition, there are many companies that take advantage of Cloud solutions to achieve fluid communication between all layers of the company. As we explained in other item of this blog, cloud computing allows companies to react more quickly to business needs, in addition to making their operations more efficient. In this sense, cloud computing provides companies with a scalability and flexibility that no other type of system can offer.
The new smart factories
Factories of the future, according to Dan Zhang (professor in Management & Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado), will be proactive, and will enjoy self-healing environment. When we talk about self-healing environment, we refer to a type of software system that has the ability to deal with viruses and has a fault-tolerant design. In this case, the computer and production, which would be interconnected, would provide information to identify problems just as they happen (or even before they happen) thanks to the predictive analytics. This real-time troubleshooting could be carried out both by human operators and by the equipment itself automatically.
Audi is one of the first companies to use Industry 4.0 technologies in 2 of its factories in Germany. How does it work? When a haulier approaches one of the factories with a truck, an app on his smartphone is activated when he is 50 km from the entrance gate. At that moment, the app informs the plant that the truck is approaching and sends the exact coordinates of its location thanks to a GPS system. A while later, when the truck is 20 km from the gate, it sends another notification with the number of products in the consignment that the truck is bringing. Finally, when the car is only 3 km from the factory, the cars it is transporting become part of the plant's logistics processes, i.e. they go from “in-transit” to “in-factory”. Without having to check the truck in at the control room, the driver can follow the instructions of his app, which informs him where he will have to unload each of the cars.
Thanks to the system and the technological improvements Audi has introduced, it can increase the speed of its operations and boost productivity. The truth is that, for the future, implementing smart factories will require acquiring new skills, new talent, y new ways of thinking. In short, it's about figuring out how production and logistics can help make a more individualized product with a lower error rate.