Other Voices: Five components of smart manufacturing to yield five key business results

Editor’s Note: The following column by Sudhi Bangalore, head of smart manufacturing and aftermarket services transformation group, Wipro Limited, is part of Modern’s Other Voices column. The series features ideas, opinions and insights from end-users, analysts, systems integrators and OEMs. Click here to learn about submitting a column for consideration.

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Industry 4.0 is reshaping the manufacturing industry, and emerging technologies and trends are creating opportunities for businesses to become more efficient and profitable by utilizing meaningful data.

One such concept that holds incredible potential is that of smart manufacturing, which combines information and technology to make every aspect of manufacturing more intelligent, automated and connected. Smart manufacturing promises tremendous flexibility in the creation of new and imaginative products and a manufacturing environment that is connected, self-organizing, and digital. This will be an environment wherein products will not only have information about themselves, but will also capture and report information about their history and usage.

Smart Manufacturing helps manufacturers to bring more efficiency into their operations, respond better to global consumer demand and enables faster time to market. It also improves industrial worker safety and environment sustainability. However, according to the American Society for Quality (ASQ) in its 2014 Manufacturing Outlook Survey, 87% of U.S. companies are not using smart manufacturing. According to this study, of the businesses that have implemented smart manufacturing—even partially implemented—82% reported increase efficiency. Moreover, 49% reported lower product defects and 45% reported customer satisfaction gains. If companies that have implemented smart manufacturing on even just a partial basis have already seen improvement in efficiency and customer satisfaction, imagine the impact this model will have on a business’ bottom line if fully implemented.

Five benefits of smart manufacturing
1. Increased access: Smart manufacturing allows workers to have increased access and control over the production line because they can access data from any smart mobile device. Process simulation models will provide more agility in managing and validating processes “on the fly.” Adding data analytics will help in getting much better insight from the available information and provide extreme operational excellence and flexibility.

2. Less man-power: Technology allows workers to have access to data even while not being physically present.

3. Reduced energy and cost: By adopting the smart manufacturing model, the equipment and devices will be able to communicate within the network to reduce energy consumption. This in turn also results in cost savings.

4. Increased efficiency: Now that devices will be able to communicate vital data about their usage, companies will be able to operate more effectively because they will be able to rectify issues in real time.

5. Increased revenue: With data obtained from analytics, allowing them to better target and meet the needs of customers, alongside increase efficiency, reduced cost and less manpower, manufacturing businesses will experience an increase in revenue.

Companies that implement smart manufacturing will see improvements in: yield, maintenance, uptime, quality, asset management, ease of operations, production time, time to market, market proximity (understanding the customers’ needs better), supply chain management, agility and longevity of operations.

The full spectrum of technologies required to enable the smart manufacturing concept ranges from IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and M2M (machine to machine communications) to Big Data analytics and learning networks.

The five components of smart manufacturing
1. Smart machines: Self-regulating, self-organizing and able to manage their performance and health, these machines can take and recommend precautionary measures.

2. Smart products: Products that carry information about themselves (design, distribution, sourcing and performance).

3. Digital threads: Allow various aspects of manufacturing to be connected and enable a free flow of information.

4. Analytics: Used to interpret the vast amount of data related to manufacturing, provide visibility and suggest preventive measures. The data for manufacturing analytics comes from multiple sources – machines, humans, systems and of course processes (operations), which provide majority of data in manufacturing. Analytics can also be expanded further to auto-correct the systems, machines and processes.

5. Cyber security: The ability to protect information from a breach and other data security issues.

Smart manufacturing is the way to integrate the processes and information in order to maximize benefits and unleash a business’ true potential. Businesses that do not adapt or do not find a way to respond to this shift will fall behind as their competitors move ahead. Smart manufacturing and the product data obtained during this process will change the way businesses design, service and sell to their customers.

Sudhi Bangalore has more than 14 years of experience in industrial engineering and business operations across various industry segments. Sudhi’s responsibilities include strategy, market growth and P&L management for smart manufacturing.

Prior to his current role, Bangalore headed Wipro’s Industrial Automation division. He was involved in the creation of Plant Technology Solutions group and Wipro’s go-to-market partnership with a major European company. He has a Masters in Industrial Engineering from University of Louisville and a MBA from Kent University. He lives in Charlotte, N.C.