Smart Manufacturing: Building a Resilient Factory of Future

The crisis forced rapid moves, however as well as digital technologies – specifically, virtualization to empower quick insights and informed decision-making – are eventually making manufacturing resilience a reality. Resilience is the ability to quickly revive from difficulties.

As future resilience and agility become more and more critical, the human-centered factory of the future assists to plan, prove and scaling value, specifying your journey to becoming a data-driven, resilient industry with a culture of innovation.

How Resilient Operations Drive Manufacturing Success

The crisis is just the current example of an unpredictable event disrupting manufacturing operations globally. According to the fiixsoftware report, Predictive maintenance programs have been appeared to lead to a 25-30% reduction in maintenance costs, near about 70–75% reduction in equipment failures, 35–40% reduction in downtime required to execute maintenance. Predictive maintenance depends on data-driven analysis of the condition of the equipment as specified by sensors that recognize misalignment, wear, friction, as well as stress. It is performed based on the real-time behavior of the equipment and machine, not on the manufacturer’s assumed component lifetime.

By analyzing real-time conditions, you can order parts in advance and assure technicians are ready and repairs can be made rapidly at a time that works within the operating pattern of the facility. The manufacturing industry requires to enhance resiliency and agility so it’s ready for the next disruption.

It’s essential to take note of the many infirmities and failure points that have surfaced over the past year and a half. At the beginning of the crisis, social distancing requirements made it harder to keep sufficient maintenance staff on hand to service machines. Since the beginning of the crisis, plant managers and manufacturing executives have increasingly equipped IoT technology and operational strategies.

Tools such as connected sensors located on industrial equipment let managers analyze machine health metrics and, based on that data, set up maintenance before malfunctions can lead to production delays. Advanced analytics implemented to machine health data can even recognize the concerns and specify the solution in step-by-step instructions for technicians to follow.

Predictive maintenance, as well as machine health monitoring solutions, improve resiliency in various ways, specifically by automating alert notifications for various maintenance activities. These insightful alerts assist technicians to complete a higher volume of work with lesser technicians on-site. Connected sensors utilized simultaneously with remote collaboration technologies can also enable on-site specialists to analyze machines and manage the limited staff on-site via any work needed. A resilient factory has strong maintenance abilities even with a planned crew on-site.

The advantages of resilience are both operational as well as economic. For example, if a factory can utilize machine health monitoring to make its production lines failure-proof, it becomes more desirable for customers and more competitive in the entire market. So in this way, IoT in the manufacturing industry assists manufacturers to make their strategy and business model more resilient and strong.

Building Resilience for the Future

The COVID-19 crisis has brought a new dimension to issues about worker health as well as safety on the factory floor. The future of manufacturing relies on streamlined, optimized and automated processes for operations, supply chains and production as well as across every feature of the manufacturing operation, involving workplace health and safety, asset insights, predictive maintenance and service.

Manufacturers must be capable of instantly responding to both outsides as well as internal forces so they can provide solutions that encounter customer requirements and make the world a better place. 

The factories of the past attempted to make themselves resistant to unexpected situations by utilizing a strategy of redundancy, where they would have whatever backup machine or spare part they might require inside the facility at all times. Necessary as this perspective may have been, it removed resources that rarely worked as calculated. Case in point: Social distancing essentials made machine maintenance difficult, even with a force of technicians available.

The factory of the future realizes resilience with the help of an opposite perspective based on assets being smart, lean as well as agile. Apart from being ready in advance for every kind of possibility, manufacturers can put tools such as an IoT technology in place that gives them precautions and flexibility. Machine health monitoring tools integrated with a data-driven analytics platform make the resilient factory a true fact exactly when unusual circumstances make it crucial.

It also gives manufacturers an enterprise-level and multi-operational view of all machines and processes throughout the factory, meaning they have all the insights they require to recognize concerns, enhance product quality, make fast design iterations, minimize time to market, optimize costs and accelerate decision-making so they can quickly meet customer demand. That shows to be the best form of resilience: manufacturers develop organically with the times instead of depending on the status circumstances to sustain under every sort of difficulty.

hIOTron offers a complete suite of digital manufacturing solutions and services. We can assist you to resolve today’s challenges and be ready for the manufacturing industry of tomorrow.