The Top Smart Manufacturing Trends of 2019 according to Yossi Carmon, CEO of Trunovate.
When I think about processes and efficiency I think about both of my sons. Both of them started to play piano just 6 months ago and within these 6 months, focused on their goal of improving their skills and technique. Within this short time, they were able to accelerate their expertise through defining the level of success that they wanted to achieve. For manufacturing plants it is the same – in order to accelerate efficiency and processes manufacturers must first define their challenges and set their goals.
Trunovate offers the best of what Industry 4.0 and what smart IoT has to offer in an affordable, easy to implement product based solution. Trunovate, founded in 2003 – provides a smart manufacturing solution to over 80 global companies. What I’ve understood from the industry is that smart tech equals smart business.
Thanks to the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart manufacturing allows us to produce better products more quickly and for less money. This technology will use real-time data to quickly change how work is organized, how resources are used and what scheduling will look like. This expansion will lead to increased employee productivity and add an additional $162 billion in revenue, while improvements of how operations are managed will add another $117 billion.
Smart Manufacturing are systems that are “fully-integrated”, collaborative manufacturing systems that respond in real time to meet changing demands and conditions in the factory, in the supply network, and in customer needs.
Think of your smartphone, only on a grander scale.
There are “microprocessors” that make it possible for Smartphones to operate like minicomputers. There’s the “cloud” where almost an unlimited amount of data can be stored and retrieved.
There are “apps” that can be downloaded to help us keep track of what we spend, track the location of people and devices, track how many steps we’ve walked … and the list goes on and on. Smart manufacturing utilizes all the same components, addressing the complexities of security and intellectual property for manufacturing.
Smart manufacturing will lead to some big changes in the business world, and not just inside the factories. For instance, businesses will have to constantly think about how smart objects might affect their value chain, expanding their notion of what technology can do to improve the bottom line.
This new evolution of manufacturing, so to speak, is called “Smart Manufacturing“, and it’s already bringing huge success to the European continent. Germany is currently leading towards full adoption and as soon as the U.S. gets on board, the West will experience a complete shift in the way it builds products — one that could have huge implications for the global economy.
IoT is THE Big Thing
Manufacturers are increasingly leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT), which entails the interconnection of unique devices within an existing Internet infrastructure, to achieve a variety of goals including:
- Cost reduction
- Increased efficiency
- Improved safety
- Meeting compliance requirements
- Product innovation.
IoT’s existence is primarily due to three factors:
- Widely available internet access
- Smaller sensors
- Cloud computing
According to MESA – Roughly 63% of manufacturers believe that applying IoT to products will increase profitability over the next five years and are set to invest $267 billion in IoT by 2020.
“Intelligence” from Machines
With these “smart” machines, organizations gather data that can help them implement predictive maintenance and improve productivity. However, gathering the data is the relatively easy part. Aggregating and analyzing that data is a little more challenging.
While organizations may have smart machines already on their shop floor, many of them do not have the systems in place to extract and analyze the data being captured by these systems.
Machinery must be sold to the manufacturing plants – open. This way the factories will be able to integrate with the software of their choice. This provides many difficulties within the industry for rapid growth of the plant.
Quality Prediction
Predictive quality eliminates uncertainty, and accelerates quality issues with alerts driven by business rules, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics. Historical and real-time production data is aggregated with your production process flows and machine learning algorithms to deliver better quality control. There are many influences when it comes to the quality of your product such as outside humidity levels which effect inside temperatures and ultimately your product.
Trunovate’s Industrial IoT platform quickly pinpoints potential causes for failure, leveraging root cause analysis software that provides recommendations to the production floor team, including rich supportive data driving these recommendations.
Equashield, a partner whom produce closed system transfer devices has grown from 800K units per month to now 3 Million units per month with the help of MES, automation and quality prediction. Trunovate has provided Equashield with complete transparency to reduce waste and increase velocity and together we’ve achieved an increase growth of 50% each year.
Predictive Maintenance is Keeping Production On Track
A breakdown in critical equipment is costly to manufacturers both in terms of repairs as well as downtime and loss of productivity. According to Information Technology Intelligence Consulting, 98% of organizations say a single hour of downtime costs over $100,000. Ensuring that all equipment is functioning optimally therefore remains a key priority for manufacturers, many of whom are turning to predictive maintenance technology to do so.
Widespread adoption of predictive maintenance technologies could reduce companies’ maintenance costs by 20%, reduce unplanned outages by 50% and extend machinery life by years according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
Shifting Focus From B2B to B2B2C
Many manufacturers who traditionally had a B2B business model are shifting to a B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) model due to the many benefits selling directly to consumers include:
- Increased Profit: You get the full manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) rather than wholesale prices for your products.
- Faster Time to Market: You can prototype, test, and get products to market quickly instead of contending with the lengthy traditional retail sales cycle that requires locked-down product development far ahead of order and delivery. This agility gives you a competitive edge.
- Brand Control: You own your brand. It won’t be diluted or misrepresented by third parties.
- Price Control: You can reinforce your MSRP.
- Better Customer Data: Selling direct to customers allows you to collect data about them that ultimately results in better products, stronger relationships, and increased sales.
Being responsive to customer demands—is one that speaks directly to having an agile, flexible operation. If you’re not able to deliver quality products within a prescribed timeframe to customers, they’ll find another organization that will.
Greater Visibility Into Big Data is Helping Manufacturers Achieve More
IoT is transforming almost every surface into a sensor for data collection and providing real-time insights for manufacturers. This ability to collect data from so many sources combined with increasingly powerful cloud computing is finally making big data usable. Manufacturers can use the data provided with comprehensive understanding of their business. This enables them to improve production, optimize operations, and address issues before problems arise.
Despite the tremendous good that smart manufacturing will do, IoT will also come with some pretty sizable challenges. Manufacturers are left to make sense of the gigantic volumes of data that is why choosing the right MES solution is critical to successfully understanding your manufacturing plant.
Continued Re-shoring is Leading to an Increase in Made in the U.S.A Products
Re-shoring – bringing operations back to United States shores – is becoming increasingly common among manufacturers. There are multiple factors contributing to re-shoring. Firstly, the economies in many go-to offshoring countries are doing well, which has led to an increase in wages for their residents. Secondly, in countries where labor remains inexpensive, the infrastructures typically can’t support complex manufacturing operations. In addition, transportation costs are rising. The increased use of new software programs that help manufacturers utilize robotics to automate many of the processes that used to require a human, are also contributing to a resurgence in re-shoring.
Smart MES and IoT solutions are critical to compete with off-shore manufacturing plants – American created innovation led manufacturing although when cheap labor was discovered processes became less relevant. Today, the US is leading the industry once again – and with innovation such as with MES manufacturing plants can deliver quickly increasing ROI.
Manufacturing plants that are able to achieve agile operations will be in the best position to remain competitive. Being on the cutting edge of the best methodologies for success through the latest technologies and MES solutions is a key way to accelerate your manufacturing plant.
To stay Industry 4.0 competitive, manufacturers must commit to doing five things: identifying critical business needs, understanding goals, investing in technology, building organisational capabilities and actively adapting processes and culture so both remain relevant. Investing in technology will allow for highest levels of production and product quality.
