March/April 2020

| 22 | March/April 2020 www.smartmachinesandfactories.com | STRATEGIES | As more and more consumers are looking for product customisation, it gives manufacturers the opportunity to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market. A simple example in the automotive sector is the need to not only offer cars in a range of interior and exterior colours, but to make it possible to customise the colour of every panel from skirt to the roof, effectively offering thousands of variants. And that is just the paint! Almost every aspect of manufacture offers the potential for customisation down to a batch of one approach. Quality Before customisation must come quality because no matter the various options, if a customer doesn’t feel they are getting quality for their money they won’t be a customer for much longer. When asked about the vision for their Smart Factory initiatives half (50%) of European manufacturers cite “improving product quality” as a main driver. This is the primary reason we are seeing such fast and wide deployment of Smart Factory initiatives. So how does Smart Factory aid in product quality? Let’s take an example from the plant floor, predictive maintenance tools and analytics give on-site manufacturers key information in regard to their robotics. Having in- depth knowledge of the health of these machines leads to fewer failures and therefore fewer product defects. To the Edge Central to all of the benefits available, the Smart Factory produces another an ever-increasing abundance of data. Data on its own is worthless. It needs to be collected, analysed and contextualised to offer valuable insight. And there is value to be found at all levels of computing from the edge to the cloud and including the data centre. Cloud Computing has a role to play within Smart Factory initiatives in the form of deep machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Perfect for analysing huge datasets and finding productivity in new methods. This is made possible by the almost unlimited resource of storage and raw compute power. For most industrial enterprises it makes sense not to send all data to the Cloud, but rather to keep some computing power within the network. There are several advantages to processing certain data at the edge – most especially security and latency. It is inherently more secure not to transmit all of the company’s data to the cloud – it’s also expensive. More importantly, computing at the cloud level cannot happen in real time. With edge computing now possible with small servers that are built ruggedly to withstand the conditions at the application level, the data coming from machines and applications can be managed in real-time and efficiency, improved insight for maintenance and condition monitoring can all happen in real time. This is why edge computing is such a rapidly growing element of the Smart Factory, a fact clearly represented by the research which found that over half of respondents (51%) have already evaluated and planned their Edge Computing deployment. More than a third (37%) of manufacturers have already deployed an Edge Computing platform. Bringing computing into the operational technology environment with edge platform deployments comes with challenges. Strong Edge Computing strategies seek to take advantage of systems that are as autonomous as possible, are simple enough to require limited or no IT involvement and that are secure enough not to introduce new weaknesses to a company’s overall cyber-security stance. With those considerations in mind, and through an array of compatible automation technologies and solutions that can be supported with Edge Computing, the benefits of Edge Computing are far too good to ignore, so it is not a surprise to see how quickly an Edge strategy has become a central plank of a good Smart Factory approach. Conclusion The Smart Factory offers value to manufacturers in terms of both growth opportunity and competitiveness. There is simply no doubt that the vast majority of industrial enterprises have set into motion the Smart Factory strategies that will shape the future of industry. In covering some of the key internal drivers that are pushing productive changes within European manufacturing facilities we can see that industry not only understands the challenges and opportunities, but that many are now delivering value against Smart Factory initiatives. The survey has highlighted encouraging results into increased investment and adoption, we expect to see further deployment as the ROI becomes easier to prove and new technologies, such as Edge Computing, offer value to manufacturers. In part two we will be analysing the external factors that are driving manufacturers towards the Smart Factory and consider the world of Smart Factories beyond the factory gates. Stratus Technologies Stratus takes the complexity out of keeping business critical applications running 24/7. Stratus’ technologies proactively prevent instances of unplanned downtime both in the data center and at the edge, and our services ensure any issues are addressed before customers need to. Global Fortune 500 companies and small medium sized businesses in a wide range of industries across the globe have been relying on Stratus for operationally simple, continuous availability for more than 35 years. For more information, please visit www.stratus.com or follow on Twitter @StratusAlwaysOn.