December/January 2019

| 12 | December/January 2020 www.smartmachinesandfactories.com | FEATURES | M anufacturers in the Machine Building industry are facing a number of key challenges, including increasing productivity and responding to changing consumer demands. These consequences also impact the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that supply their machines. The sector requires that its OEMs manufacture systems with ever- shorter run times, greater flexibility, and increased efficiency in order for their customers to stay competitive. Industry 4.0, which refers to new generation digitalised technology , brings clear, specific benefits to the Machine Building industry. It introduces highly flexible and totally automated manufacturing that enables new economies of production and it allows businesses to take a product to market more quickly by connecting the supply chain to the production facility through interoperability. Connected and communicating production machinery reduces wastage. This enables more flexible production with shorter swap-over times, provides greater energy and machinery- utilisation transparency and improves overall equipment effectiveness and other key performance factors. Rising levels of automation associated with Industry 4.0 implementations means that machine builders will have more equipment and technology to monitor and control. To meet these changing requirements, machine builders are making decisions about the technological building blocks of their products. Industry 4.0 – including customer- specific compliance standards - is placing increasing demands on machine communication networks, for example, requiring them to handle more data types and larger data volumes, while at the same time maintaining operating performance required by regulators for safety and reliability. Digitalisation and sensor technology enable remote control, monitoring, and in-line adjustment, all of which allows processes to be refined and maintenance predictively scheduled to maximise uptime. Customers’ preferred network standards also have to be seamlessly accommodated. Digital virtualisation is certainly making it easier, faster and less expensive to develop and test client machine configurations. Machines are developed in a virtual environment, various options and configurations tested, and the results reported back to the client before physical specification and construction is finalised. Similarly, software modules are tested in the same environment. Creating a ‘digital twin’ - the virtual copy of a real machine or system – in this way, is increasingly helping to ensure optimized machine design, efficient commissioning, short OEMs can help their customers in the Machine Building sector embrace digitalisation with integrated finance. Neli Ivanova, sales manager, Industrial Equipment at Siemens Financial Services in the UK, reports. Serving up finance