Five ways IoT is transforming the manufacturing industry
The IoT revolution is changing the way companies around the world are doing business, helping them to work smarter and achieve better outcomes than ever before. There is no better example of this than what we’re seeing today in the industrial field: Manufacturers are now able to gather data from sensors and use analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence to garner insights that can help them increase efficiencies, streamline their operations and identify new business opportunities. As the old models of production change, they make room for new emerging approaches, such as Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. Both focus on how manufacturing businesses can harness the power of digitalization to more safely and efficiently produce products, goods or services.
This trend is unlikely to change anytime soon. Research firm BI Intelligence expects the number of connected machines in manufacturing environments to swell from 237 million in 2015 to 923 million in 2020. As a result, industrial IoT has become its own phenomenon within the IoT landscape . As factories are now increasingly implementing IIoT solutions, here are five key ways we believe IoT will permanently change the manufacturing industry for the better.
For those not using IoT, there is little transparency when it comes to the supply chain process. Everything takes time, including checking each product as its being developed for quality and efficiency to meet required quotas and deadlines. Analyzing IoT data in real time allows a plant to work smarter, not harder. Visualization tools can also provide them with greater transparency into manufacturing processes, like the efficiency of employees, to provide a holistic view of how well their entire facility and production schedule is functioning. It also enables them to better monitor their assets and predict and prevent machine failures to avoid major operational issues or production delays.
A digital twin is a digital representation of a physical asset or system and is a core functionality of any IIoT platform offering worth its salt in the market today. At Hitachi, we call them asset avatars. Whatever you want to call them, they provide enormous benefits to manufacturers. As a complete replica, a digital twin offers limitless possibilities to factories, such as using simulations to test a physical asset’s lifespan, finding methods to develop better versions of the product or looking for inefficiencies that can be addressed. Plants no longer need to wait for a product line failure to occur because with digital twins they have the ability to forecast when a physical asset is due to have an issue. The physical assets being replicated today can range from airplane engines to wind turbines; any type of machinery, regardless of size, can be mapped and analyzed in a safe and controlled environment. By mitigating product defects and failures ahead of time and keeping plants functioning efficiently, factory managers are able to ensure they can meet required deadlines and forecast their output appropriately.
