I am often ask do discuss, write or present on the topic of
IIoT or Industry 4.0: Who will win? Myself and David McPhail wrote an article on this hot topic for Manufacturing Automation.
Below are some of the highlights from our article.
"At Memex, we are frequently asked questions
about both the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0.
The questions usually start off, “What do you see happening in
[IIoT/Industry 4.0]?” The conversation will quickly zero in on their
real concern, which is to find an answer to the question: “What and when
should I be doing something with [IIoT/Industry 4.0]?”
Conceptually, are either IIoT or Industry 4.0 really new in
manufacturing? The answer to that question is an emphatic “no.” One only
needs to go back 36 years to the Manufacturing Automation Protocol
(MAP) effort led by GM to see just one standardization attempt applied
to manufacturing. For either to be successful, they must provide a net
bottom line benefit for the dollars invested by delivering tangible and
measurable business outcome(s).
At Memex, we would argue what is
changing even faster is that manufacturing is catching up, and even
surpassing, other industries in truly understanding what is happening on
the plant floor.
Only two to four per cent of all shops or plants are
monitored, a fact Dave Edstrom, Memex CTO, picked up when surveying the
industry during his time as president and chairman of the board of the
MTConnect Institute. When asked, most plant or shop managers will state
their plant utilization is in the 65 to 75 per cent range. When
hardware/software is deployed that can properly quantify this number, it
is shown time and again to be actually 25 to 32 per cent. A significant
inflection point for both IIoT and Industry 4.0 is MTConnect. A fact
that cannot be overstated is that the open and royalty-free
manufacturing interconnectivity standard MTConnect has been a huge
enabler for manufacturing and provides the viable highway for
information sharing from the shop floor to the top floor."
Below is where we discuss the critical importance of the platform.
"Now that we
have provided the definitions directly from the sources and the relevant
context, let’s look at how we would respond to the next question, “What
does Memex see happening in [IIoT/Industry 4.0]?” For many, IIoT means
that after a plant has attached all of their manufacturing equipment,
they come to the conclusion that data analysis begets more data analysis
and they want to start adding sensors — everywhere. These sensors
include coolant, vibration, temperature, humidity, motion, current and
amperage, to name just a few. These sensors come into play after shops
have electronically connected to their major assets, such as machine
tools and operators. This attention on connecting everything in
manufacturing underscores the importance of interoperability, the first
design principle of Industry 4.0.
What both of these efforts are
trying to establish is to be the platform for manufacturing. What is a
platform? Microsoft Windows, Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Apple’s
OS X are all examples of platforms. A platform is not just the operating
system, but it is also the rules of the road in terms of
interoperability between systems, security, licensing, interfaces,
reference implementations, working groups and countless other critical
aspects of a platform. Building a platform that becomes an industry
standard is extremely difficult and expensive."
A question that we ask in the article. Note that I always wanted to get my favorite Woody Allen quote in my writing and I do here :-)
"What should a shop owner or plant manager being doing today with either IIoT or Industry 4.0?The
tremendous interest in both Industry 4.0 and IIoT are proving the point
that many of us in manufacturing have known for years manufacturing is
ripe for analytics. Both Industry 4.0 and IIoT fall into the data-driven
manufacturing camp.
Woody Allen once said, “If you live in a country
run by a committee, make sure you are on the committee.” Your level of
involvement today with these efforts should directly reflect the
possible outcomes and the tangible net business benefits to your
business. If you are running a large plant with many software
developers, you might want to invest some of a software developer’s time
into either investigating these efforts or possibly joining Industry
4.0."
We finish up with the critically important question:
"
What steps should a plant manager take with either IIoT or Industry 4.0?
• Realize these efforts are a means to an end, not an end in itself.
•
The bottom line with any effort in manufacturing should answer the
fundamental question, “How does this help me improve my efficiency so I
can make more parts and more profits with less resources in less time?”
•
Far and away, the best investment of time is to truly understand what
is happening on your plant floor. The way to accomplish this is with a
shop floor monitoring system. The ROI of shop floor monitoring is
measured in weeks and months, delivering an average of 300 per cent
Internal Return Rate of capital — the percentage is based on the
information we track from our customers.
• When it comes time to connect your assets on your shop floor, use MTConnect as the interconnectivity standard.
•
If you are one of the less than five per cent who have completely
connected your plant floor and can see exactly what is happening on any
given manufacturing asset at anytime and from anywhere, then you should
start looking into where it makes sense to work with Industry 4.0.
In
our opinion, IIoT for manufacturing is really about adding sensors to
manufacturing and the basic challenge is interoperability;
interoperability is always the challenge in computers.
Will IIoT
or Industry 4.0 be the MAP of the 21st century and end up in the
graveyard of industrial standards initiatives that promised much but
didn’t deliver, or will both truly be worthy of the term “revolution?”
Only time will tell, but our bet is it doesn’t matter what you call it,
if you are not connecting your plant’s assets to be monitored, then it
is not if you will go out of business, but when. "
