Technology advancement offers vast opportunities for businesses managers to increase their return on investment. Technology influences the business cycle, from supply chain management to performance analytics.
The Internet of Things is among the greatest breakthroughs in the manufacturing industry. Factories, or shop floors have never been revolutionized than it currently is with the Internet. Factories integrate digital technologies in the operations to increase efficiency. It is commonly known as Smart Factories. It combines digital concepts to increase efficiencies. These includes Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, and the Internet of Things.
Factories are struggling with low availability of skilled labor, shortage in raw materials, and the effects of Covid 19. There has not been any other better time to invest in a Smart Factory monitoring solution. Smart monitoring is the answer to the biggest labor and raw material challenges.
“We have become a white-collar workforce, and automation has become a necessity.”
Randy Breaux
If you are still wondering whether or not to invest in Smart Factory technologies, here are a few reasons why Smart Factories is the answer:
The software monitoring technologies predict failures in advance. The machines can thus get a service and maintenance check before the failures happen. This can reduce the routine maintenance time by 20%, thus increasing the uptime. Having a central smart open communication saves on time lost in consultations. Faults are detected early, corrections are done on time, and downtime is avoided. Thus, the machines get more uninterrupted operational time raising productivity and quality production.
Bottlenecks affect the efficiency of the flow in factory processes. Bottlenecks can arise from excessive job changeover resulting in a machine going down. Physical inspection on load imbalances is time costly and can result in delayed production.
Smart monitoring offers opportunities of detecting parameters like sound, heat, vibration. These would take time through physical inspection. Smart monitoring operations run concurrently with monitoring without interference. That makes machines more reliable.
Smart factories are based on data sharing. At most times, it involves sharing big data. With data, you are informed of the conditions of the manufacturing lines. Therefore, you can make informed decisions on operations.
The data helps you identify the training needs of the workers in manufacturing units. You schedule and manage the maintenances schedules. You understand the right time to fix, and replace the machines.
Smart monitoring technologies enhance the general performance of the manufacturing lines. This reduces faults in the quality of the products. The early timing of repairs increases production efficiency.
Smart Factory machine monitoring solutions create avenues of data sharing. Data is shared between managers and employees who can collaboratively fix issues. Employees no longer need to guess the area of defects within the machine. The data sharing enables the real-time response of faults and repairs.
Informed employees can work as teams to make corrections in good time. The enthusiasm that comes with a problem solved motivates employees in their work. The real-time reports of the machine conditions make it easy for employees to fix issues within production lines.
Machine efficiency in one of the production module features in Axacute which allows you to measure machine utilization by tracking downtime, run and setup hours, ensuring seamless processes thus motivating employees.
Smart Factory technologies reduce an array of wastes. These would otherwise arise through defects and unpredicted breakdowns. Every time a machine breaks down, wastes in faulty products are enormous.
Adding value to defective products produced in faulty manufacturing systems creates more losses. It can be avoided through early detection of malfunctioning. Time wasted in delays is also avoided with Smart Factory monitoring solutions.
Availability of skilled labour is becoming a challenge among employers. Thus, losing an employee from a manufacturing unit can mean a great loss. Smart Factory monitoring solutions improve labour motivation from reduced time in monitoring.
Employee motivation translates to retention. The reduced time in monitoring can be invested in upgrading the employees’ capacity. Manufacturers enjoy increased uptime without incurring huge losses in unpredicted stoppages during operations.
Delayed supply of the raw materials and other buffers that arises within the supply chain in manufacturing can act as bottlenecks reducing the efficiency of the systems. The Smart Factory monitoring solutions detects deficiencies in the supply chain within production lines, balancing imbalances through real-time reporting.
The production output can thus remain stable with the management of the supply chain process. Smart machine monitoring also detects the production speed and checks through the standard time to detect inefficiencies. It can point out bottlenecks that can lead to early detection.
You could be wondering whether you can afford smart technologies. Many manufacturers are skeptical. However, it is still possible. You don’t need to have everything in a fortnight. You can strategically plan to upgrade you existing manufacturing system in bits. Smart Factoring monitoring solutions are made of combined processes. Therefore, you can decide to have each component after the other. Nonetheless, you need to know what are your manufacturing needs. Not all digital technologies are feasible with every manufacturing.
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