May 2019

10,000 manufacturing workers) is a useful metric, with the UK consistently ranking below other developed nations. This reticence is a challenge in itself. David Randall, Business Development Manager from Lenze commented that as the concept of Industry 4.0 hasn’t reached some factories yet, “what is [going to] hold them back is that Industry 3 [automation technology] hasn’t been installed.”. So, for those just starting out, looking at the ‘pre-beginning’ of the Smart Manufacturing journey, you may ask yourself: what does “Smart manufacturing” mean? Where are you now? Where do you want to go? Who do you need to convince to come with you? Do you have the skills to do it? This all seems like a logical progression, but it isn’t. You may find the process iterative, it’s very hard to take someone on a journey when they don’t agree on the destination, or don’t want to go at all. And, knowing where you are helps you understand if your destination is achievable and how you need to get there. At its most basic, smart manufacturing is the use of data to improve business and production processes. Data as always been created by processes, machines, factories, offices and even people. It’s just that now we have the capability to do something useful with that data. Plugging condition monitoring data into AI helps predict failures, measure energy usage to optimise processes and data can allocate stock and human resource automatically. The potential is incredible. We haven’t even begun to realise what can be achieved. But AI and machine learning etc. are the ‘hows’ and once again I am getting ahead of myself. So, as Andy Mills, sales and marketing manager from Phoenix Contact put it, the first step for any manufacturer is “communication within themselves”. Alan Conn, B&R Industrial Automation’s managing director agrees: “There is a big element of winning hearts and minds, from people operating machine to management level. To give that clarity of thought and understanding on what it actually means. How is it relevant to my machine or my production line?”. However, given that Smart Manufacturing is expressed through the convergence of OT (operational technology) and IT (information technology), it is not just the shop floor that needs to buy-in. If the IT department is not also brought on board at consultation stage, you are creating an insurmountable hurdle for yourself. This is true for skills sets within manufacturing site too. Alan Conn believes that to get the full ROI (return on investment) from any investment in smart technologies or infrastructure is when you have the blended automation and IT skill set. Andy Mills takes it one further and thinks it is beyond automation and IT departments working together, soon there will be IT-Automation specialists “This is very much something no one will have ever heard of before [but] I believe everyone will end up with one.”. Changes to technology is if anything is encouraging this collaboration between departments. The traditional divide between the IT level and the Engineering level made it very difficult to make a connection between the MES (Machine Execution Systems) where SCADA system sat and the business system levels. Technology “edge” technology is making that connection easier and increasingly, it is the IT folk who understand how the machines tick. What is clear is that in the smart manufacturing world, when it comes to your industrial and IT departments, there will no more silos. With your house in order, and open conversation taking place between stakeholders, there needs to be a | 26 | May 2019 www.smartmachinesandfactories.com | STRATEGIES – GAMBICA three-part digitalisation series |