Technological disruptions in four areas are disrupting industries and laying the ground for Industry 4.0. According to Yeshraj Singh, these are data, computational power and interconnectivity, analytics and intelligence, advanced production methods and human-machine interaction.

 

In his book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum remarked, “The changes are so profound that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril.”

This singular phrase encapsulates the double-edged nature of digitisation, brought on by Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution that is currently making its way across the world. While the idea of the fourth industrial revolution was first expressed as far back as the 1940s, Industry 4.0 has been part of contemporary lexicon ever since the German government laid out its strategy for dealing with the inevitable reality of the digitisation of manufacturing – the creation of ‘smart factories’ by assimilating physical manufacturing with the Internet of Things (IoT).

 

Several experts argue about the undue focus on technology that is bringing about the change of work and workforce, as we know it today. However, Schwab’s crowd-sourced book makes an important observation about the nature of Industry 4.0. “It is the fusion of these technologies and their interaction across the physical, digital and biological domains that make the fourth industrial revolution fundamentally different from previous revolutions”, he says.

 

What has ushered this revolution?

The past two decades have witnessed a drastic reduction in costs of communication hardware like sensors that have unlocked the dormant potential of machines. Technological breakthroughs in the below four areas are disrupting industries and laying the ground for Industry 4.0, namely data, computational power and interconnectivity, analytics and intelligence, advanced production methods and human-machine interaction.

 

No matter at what stage of digital adoption a country is presently at, digital transformation through Industry 4.0, with its emphasis on ‘cyber physical’ production, is therefore an unstoppable phenomenon, with deep implication particularly for the manufacturing sector. However, a recent Deloitte survey of 1,600 C-level executives across 19 countries, titled ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution is here – are you ready?’ shows that only ‘14 per cent of respondents are highly confident their organisations are ready to fully harness the changes associated with Industry 4.0.’

 

The survey also states that only a quarter of CXOs surveyed are highly confident they have the right workforce composition and skill sets needed for the future, despite 84 percent saying they are doing everything they can to create a workforce for Industry 4.0. The true potential of Industry 4.0 should be harnessed for creating newer business models and not merely bringing in changes to the nature of work. However, only 20 percent of CXOs in the Deloitte survey ‘consider their organizations highly prepared to handle new business or delivery models, and less than 15 percent believe they are highly prepared for smart and autonomous technologies’.

 

Why is this transformation so difficult? 

Let us now examine the five trends that are currently shaping the industrial segment, which are affecting value creation and thereby value capture in manufacturing:

1. Product as a service – By transforming from dumb to smart, products are now fast emerging as full-fledged platforms that address multiple needs rather than serve a single purpose. For example, look at the way connected cars are revolutionizing the concept of transportation.

2. Customisation – Consumers are no longer passive customers. The increasing personalization of technology has meant that consumers now want products that suit their needs. With technologies like AI, manufacturers are relying on hard data to create products that are intuitive to the needs and wants of individual customers. Take the case of tailor made medical devices that suit a single patient’s condition.

3. Design disruption – The advent of new technologies like automation, robotics, machine learning and AI is bringing about radical changes in not only product design, but the entire product life cycle itself. 

4. Faster speed to commercialisation – Interconnected technologies associated with Industry 4.0 have revamped the supply chain by minimizing the role of intermediaries and facilitating direct consumer engagement. 

5. Distributed manufacturing – Build to order over build to stock is the new manufacturing mantra. The emerging models of manufacturing is making production more optimal and cost effective, eroding barriers to learning, entry and commercialisation.

In light of these trends, manufacturing companies are grappling with two-fold challenges that are hindering the transition to Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing sphere – at the machine level, there are issues in product design and information flow. Design and engineering teams work in silos. With higher number Engineering Change Orders (ECO) that may be implemented to improve cost efficiencies in the manufacturing process, the lack of congruence with design makes turnaround difficult to achieve in an efficient manner. Design to manufacturability, or the practice of designing products in a way to make their production simpler is outdated. When compounded by an archaic supply chain information, the chances of non-conformance are high, reducing the production value. Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) is not in sync with Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), creating outdated work instructions and documents. There is also limited adaptability to design disruption.

 

At the workforce level, there is an unpreparedness to tackle the changes that Industry 4.0 brings. Design consumption, inspection and quality reporting are largely paper based systems, limiting the potential to harness data for predictive maintenance. Without the power of data, there is limited scope for understanding production losses and strategising ways to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness. There other such problems which act as hindrances such as limited integration between ERP, PLM and MES teams, extension point are predominately proprietary software and significant skill gap.

 

The factory of the future 

A ‘brilliant factory’ as conceptualised by one of the OEMs leading digitisation, is the pinnacle of manufacturing ingenuity, where heretofore discordant elements of the manufacturing process, like design, engineering, production, supply chain and services are stitched together by connected technology into ‘one intelligent system’. 

 

The factory of the future is driven by two primary objectives – to enable faster product regeneration and ensure optimization of assets, facility, fleet and network. With IoT cutting across the entire value chain from design to field service, there are several fundamental building blocks of a smart factory. These include design system integration, transition to a paperless model based enterprise, where a common communication framework is designed to support the entire design process and the development cycle and finally, deployment of analytics to drive efficiencies through small changes. New age technologies enable the digitalisation in three key domains – digital product engineering, connected factory and brilliant manufacturing. 

 

To enable digital product engineering, production level software provide two channels of production design – the model centric design or model based definition and additive design or additive manufacturing. The model centric design delivers benefits across the manufacturing process – planning and simulation, production planning and scheduling, part production, inspection and analysis, and finally, assembly and testing. For creating a connected factory, IoT driven supervisory systems and data collections and controls enable the integration at the shop floor through Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). At the plant level, this involves enhancing Human Machine Interaction and Machine-to-Machine interaction for driving increased productivity and efficiency by automating mundane tasks and allowing predictive maintenance.

 

To achieve brilliant manufacturing, enterprise level software (ERP and PLM), big data, cloud computing and manufacturing informatics support the seamless integration of enterprise and shop floor execution. This helps meet the entire spectrum of digital manufacturing goals – product definition, resource planning, IoT enabled machines and business operation, decision making and optimisation.

 

Conclusion

While organisations are struggling to define their digital transformation strategy, digital technologies like IoT, AR/VR, AI, Blockchain and the like is knocking the door with lots of opportunities. With Industry 4.0 and digital technologies expected to add around $14.2 trillion to the global economy by 2030, the industrial world needs to identify systems that can add value and reduce cost through digital capabilities. The key factors that can lead to successful digital transformation can be summed up as better understanding the customer requirements, identifying areas apt for digital transformation, bringing in the required changes to build a high-quotient digital on-demand workforce and optimise legacy or new systems to ensure high ROI. The journey to Industry 4.0 therefore is focused on optimising technology to benefit consumers, workers, the environment and society as a whole.

 

Pepperl+Fuchs launches Next-Gen purge and pressurisation system

Pepperl+Fuchs, a world leader in process automation, has introduced an advanced Bebco EPS purge and pressurisation system, designed for Class I or II/Div. 2 and Zone 2/22 locations. This innovative and compact manual or automatic system delivers all the features needed for reliable hazardous location protection within a small, streamlined solution.

 

The 7500 series Ex pzc/Type Z purge and pressurisation system can be fully automatic or manual and purges a common enclosure of hazardous gas or dust to maintain positive pressure. It effectively reduces the classification within the protected enclosure to a non-hazardous area. The 7500 carries ATEX and IECEx certifications and is UL listed. It operates within an extremely small footprint of only 5.8” x 3.8” x 1.9”.

“The new, compact 7500 series is easy to use, offering absolute reliability and efficiency. When fully automated it provides excellent enclosure protection for electrical equipment like motors, drives, control panels and cabinets, and gas analyzers. Whether you need gas or dust protection in the oil and gas, chemical, maritime, or offshore industry - the Bebco EPS 7500 can be used in process industries around the world for applications that previously required heavier and more expensive explosion-proof protection,” said Kristen Barbour, Marketing Manager.

 

The 7500 Series includes intelligent automatic monitoring and control of enclosure pressure with dilution and continuous flow functionality. The system makes automatic adjustments and provides an alarm output for reliable protection. It is designed in marine-grade chromate aluminum - making it rugged enough to withstand the harsh conditions of many process industries. The 7500 uses universal AC/DC power and is available as both a panel mount and external mount. The large touch screen enables quick and easy setup while also providing status LEDs, a bar graph for pressure, and multiple program selections.

 

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Yeshraj Singh is the General Manager and Strategic Initiative Leader – Digital Transformation at QuEST Global.  In this role, Yesh focuses on delivering transformative digital solutions across industrial segment to optimise processes, launch new products, improve quality, maintain compliance and control costs. He has 18 years of proven track record in developing and executing transformational business strategy, digital technology roadmap and operation plan. Yesh is a graduate in engineering from Govind Ballabh Pant Krishi Evam Praudyogik Vishwavidyalaya. He has also completed his masters in design engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and pursuing a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Visvesvaraya Technological University.

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