Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications in manufacturing operations are helping manufacturers produce products faster and at lower costs. But beyond that, they are also enabling qualitatively different, “smart” manufacturing operations that could transform the way a number of industries makes products, components and materials.
A recent report by research firm Frost & Sullivan, based in Mountain View, Calif., predicts that the “Internet of Things” (IoT) progression in industrial automation, enabled by M2M communications, will allow the development of “smart manufacturing plants” over the remainder of this decade. On a bigger scale, between now and 2020, companies will progressively implement technologies such as wireless connectivity, enterprise mobility, cloud platforms, Big Data analytics, and advanced robotics to achieve “a fully connected plant floor” and “virtual interactive plants.”
In an interview with Tech Trends Journal, Vikrant Gandhi, Frost & Sullivan’s principal analyst for mobile and wireless technologies, said that a significant benefit that will come out of IoT deployments is greater efficiency. However, he stressed, “It is not just about optimizing and monitoring the actual manufacturing processes, such as real-time temperature and pressure control, adding, “it is also about ensuring operational efficiencies in manufacturing, including power consumption, supply chain management, proactive -- not reactive -- machine health monitoring, and even remote diagnostics and fault/error resolution.”
Frost & Sullivan research associate Shuba Ramkumar, who works in the firm’s information and communications technologies (ICT) practice and is author of the new report, in an interview with Tech Trends Journal, said that M2M and IoT technologies are already “reducing costs, increasing output, and decreasing wastage.”
But like Gandhi, Ramkumar emphasized that the benefits go beyond low-hanging fruit. “These technologies help make manufacturing smarter,” Ramkumar said. For example, she said, the technologies can “not only increase the scale of manufacturing, but encourage the manufacture of products with niche requirements.”
In other words, smaller and more highly specified production runs become increasingly feasible. “For example,” she said, “in the manufacture of paints or coatings, one product may require more of one ingredient than for another product. Manufacturers can record these specifications so that the right output is obtained without the need for human intervention.”
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Ramkumar outlined several examples of how manufacturers are using IoT technologies right now:
● In wireless connectivity, she said, “A U.K. manufacturer uses energy harvesting technology to power a wireless temperature transmitter for remote temperature measurements in the plant.”
● In the area of asset management, “One manufacturer uses handsets powered by sensors to remotely track employees on the plant floor and ensure their safety.”
● Big Data allows one solar [panel] manufacturer to use data-visualization tools in conducting “real-time analysis of the production performance, identifying defects and the root causes for them.”
As is often the case with cutting-edge technologies, implementation might be hard to predict right now, as new uses for innovative systems typically arise after businesses put them through their paces and evaluate the results. “Intelligence gained from the implementation of these technologies is one of the most important advancements” in moving M2M and IoT forward, Ramkumar said. “This will not just help reduce production time and increase output, but will initiate discussion about processes and inspire innovations in manufacturing in the long run.”
Advances in M2M communications are helping manufacturers achieve the first step toward two key objectives: (1) collecting data about processes on the plant floor and (2) transmitting information for control of devices. As the required technologies develop, connected machines will allow “faster identification of faults on the plant floor” and permit “transparency about the status of various processes,” according to the Frost & Sullivan report. Eventually, an automated, smart plant floor built on connected machines will “receive and respond to orders from central control systems and human machine interfaces.”
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This article was originally published on ThomasNet News Industry Market Trends and is reprinted in its entirety with permission from Thomas Industrial Network. For more stories like this please visit Industry Market Trends.