March 2020

38 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk March 2020 Energy, the Environment & Water Focus on: Drives, Motors & Controls The benefits of investing in smart drive technology I ndustry 4.0, smart manufacturing, factory of the future - call it what you will, the evolution of manufacturing is underway, at least for some UK manufacturers. Across the country, businesses vary drastically in their adoption of these smart technologies. Some have been embracing digitalisation for years, with forward-thinking factories harnessing technology to automate processes or gather and analyse data to improve production, while others are watching from the sidelines, yet to take the leap. Yet if you read about smart manufacturing or factories of the future, promises of greater productivity, quality and efficiency are commonplace. So, why are manufacturers yet to fully embrace the new dawn of connected manufacturing? For many, the answer lies in the cost - or the perceived cost - of digitalisation. The initial investment in smart technology can be enough to put many manufacturers off making the move to a smarter way of working, but the benefits of real-time quality check, continuous improvement and equipment maintenance will undoubtedly lead to cost savings and productivity improvements. Let’s explore some of the benefits of investing in smart drive technology. Manufacturing agility: Get products to market, fast. In the past, improvements to any manufacturing facility were carried out on the basis that they would improve the efficiency, quality and effectiveness of either the manufacturing process or the product itself. However, customer demands are changing and the manufacturing industry and technology is being forced to adapt to keep up. More and more often, products need to be produced in small, highly customised batches, putting pressure on businesses to reduce their time-to- market and adapt to changes in demand. To do so, businesses need to invest in technology that gives them the flexibility to adapt quickly to fulfil demand. In older, less agile manufacturing environments, changes in production processes required an investment in new technology and resulted in significant downtime while a changeover was implemented. In today’s world, critical drive and control technology can be configured at a digital level rather than a physical one, enabling manufacturing facilities to support customisation of products and meet customer demand in a far quicker and more cost-effective way without significant downtime. An investment in energy efficient technology. Reducing carbon footprint, saving the world or making cost-savings by reducing energy bills? Whatever your motivation, investing in systems that reduce energy usage is a win-win situation. By moving to cabinet-free drive technology, users can actively reduce energy consumption in a number of ways. Until recently drive technology has been designed in such a way that drives and related wiring were enclosed within a cabinet. To avoid overheating, fans or AC units had to be used to cool the high temperatures within the enclosure. With cabinet- free drive technology, the cooling hardware - and the energy required to run it - becomes completely redundant. The system also features energetic coupling via the hybrid cable - at a basic level, this means it is able to generate energy which can be put back into the system. If, for example, one drive brakes, the energy created by the brakes can now be used to power another drive within the machine. An additional ‘Smart Energy Mode’ on the power supply evens out the surges in power demand reducing the peak loads of the machine. This added energy efficiency helps to realise energy savings of up to 50%. Open core: a new era in automation programming. As with all manufacturing processes, machine manufacturers often look for ways to speed up time-consuming tasks and shorten delivery times. Using open-core software engineering opens up new opportunities - both by enhancing processes by creating bespoke software tools and by tapping into a whole new skillset. High- level software languages, or even standard PC packages such as Excel, can be used to produce common data collection programs that are run at the IT level, and not at the machine PLC level. As well as making it far simpler and faster to collate production data from a number of PWE takes a look at the top five ways to improve ROI on industrial drive technology.