Manufacturing Technology

Taking the edge off Industry 4.0

~ Why edge analytics should be part of an IIoT strategy ~ In a 2019 report from Forrester, 69 per cent of decision makers said that prioritising edge Internet of Things (IoT) processes would improve their ability to meet IoT objectives. And they aren’t wrong. Eventually, it won’t be possible for all data to be stored and monitored in the cloud — this is where edge analytics offers an olive branch. Here, Johan Jonzon, CMO and Co-Founder of pioneer in edge analytics for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Crosser, looks at why edge analytics should be a key part of an IIoT strategy in manufacturing. Gartner predicts that, by 2025, more than 75 per cent of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside the traditional data center or cloud. Gaining access to relevant data in a central location, either a cloud or a data center, is key to making changes and meeting business objectives. Companies must therefore ensure data is received in a faster, more secure and cost-effective way by making edge analytics a key part of their IIoT strategy. Edge systems hold numerous benefits for the manufacturing industry. Relevant data can be transmitted from the edge so that businesses can act on insights in real-time. The reduced distance between the server and end-user enables quicker data analysis and decision-making. In addition to delivering faster insights, the sheer volume of data that connected devices are creating is making edge analytics a necessity. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), “every connected person in the world will have at least one digital data interaction every 18 seconds”. If we consider just how many IIoT devices are available in a smart manufacturing plant, we can quickly see why manufacturing needs the edge. Strategy on the edge Manufacturers must manage all their devices […]

Why automate?

By Daniel Carranco Director, Continuous Improvement Global Shop Solutions Manufacturers are looking to lower cost and increase speed without sacrificing quality. This means getting more done in less time, with less manpower, less scrap and fewer mistakes. To do this, the manufacturing industry is investing more in automation. Specifically, automating the processes and tasks that machines can do quicker and better than humans and integrating them with a company’s ERP system and other technology. What once seemed to be the stuff of science fiction – manufacturing plants run by robots – is already a reality. FANUC Corporation of Japan uses a workforce of robots working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to produce up to 23,000 robots a month. Most manufacturers are a long way from being able to automate the majority of their production processes. But as ongoing advances enable machines and humans to get better at talking to each other, more production lines and eventually more production plants will become more and more automated. If your manufacturing business hasn’t yet jumped on the automation bandwagon, it’s time, and here are the top five reasons why you should. 1.To reduce labor costs For most manufacturers, labor costs represent the biggest expense and hardest cost to manage (or reduce). It’s no surprise that companies around the globe have begun using automated machinery and equipment to replace human workers on assembly lines. For example, automation is already replacing human labor in areas such as picking and moving parts, assembly, inspection and more. Other examples where automation is producing significant reductions in labor costs include: BOM COMPARE. Reduces expensive engineering time by eliminating the manual comparing of CAD/CAM BOMs against existing BOMs in your ERP system. Improves the speed and reliability of employee software logins and inventory tracking. AUTOMATING PURCHASING. […]

Service buses and their impact on digitalisation

One of the biggest challenges that enterprises face in their digitalisation efforts is having too many complex data silos and applications that don’t follow a common architecture. The promises of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are significant, but there are several traps that companies need to avoid in order secure the long-term outcome of their digitalisation projects. The answer lies in a flexible, future-proofed data architecture, as Martin Thunman, CEO and co-founder at edge analytics platform Crosser, explains. IDC reports that 60 per cent of executives believe the Internet of Things (IoT) will play a critical role in their digital business strategy — with big data and analytics among the top technologies already implemented to support this. However, the communication layer of yesterday has evolved and has now become even more intelligent. Therefore, industry now needs to add intelligent logic between data endpoints to enable IoT applications. Architectural development The core concept of the enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture is that it enables easy integration of multiple applications by putting a communication bus between them. This is crucial in increasing organizational agility by reducing time to market, making it one of the key reasons that companies implement an ESB as the backbone of their IT infrastructure. This is down to an ESB architecture providing a simple, well defined, “pluggable” system that is highly scalable. From the ESB followed the need of an event driven architecture (EDA) to leverage insights when they occur. This formed the need for initial steps toward the integration of large enterprise systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). ESB is regarded as the most promising strategy for integrating business applications across distributed and diverse frameworks and platforms today. Using ESB as a middleware layer creates a superset of both service oriented architecture (SOA) and EDA. […]

Carbon-neutral manufacturing is possible

Amid a slow political process on climate change, businesses globally must step up their efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Engineering and manufacturing can make an essential contribution to achieving net zero, as manufacturing plants, machinery, and sophisticated production processes are at the heart of global value creation everywhere. The good news is that we can help to significantly limit global warming and reach net-zero emissions, using the technology and know-how we already have. Three key priorities that will propel us more quickly on this journey – if we embrace them consistently: Focus all our efforts on minimising greenhouse gas emissions. Use all available levers for improvement, from the thousands of incremental refinements that add up to significant efficiency gains over time, to fundamentally designing and adapting large industrial plants and processes with the goal of climate neutrality. We will need to question established routines and scrutinise every aspect: can we minimise the amount of stainless steel or other raw material and still get the same performance? How can we reuse more of the waste we produce in production processes, or – even better – avoid it? And this line of questioning doesn’t stop within our own operations; we must encourage, or even require, our suppliers to do the same. This is critical given that a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions are generated in the supply chain. We must put energy efficiency front and centre. There is no doubt that energy efficiency improvements will have to play a crucial role in putting the world on a net-zero pathway. In particular, heating and cooling require our immediate focus, as they account for a large proportion of energy consumption in processing plants – often between 50 and 90%. By deploying state-of-the-art heat pump technology, manufacturers can capture their waste heat from refrigeration and then boost the temperature to […]

Automate your manufacturing

By Daniel Carranco Director, Continuous Improvement, Global Shop Solutions Manufacturers are looking to lower cost and increase speed without sacrificing quality. This means getting more done in less time, with less manpower, less scrap and fewer mistakes. To do this, the manufacturing industry is investing more in automation. Specifically, automating the processes and tasks that machines can do quicker and better than humans and integrating them with a company’s ERP system and other technology. What once seemed to be the stuff of science fiction – manufacturing plants run by robots – is already a reality. FANUC Corporation of Japan uses a workforce of robots working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to produce up to 23,000 robots a month. Most manufacturers are a long way from being able to automate the majority of their production processes. But as ongoing advances enable machines and humans to get better at talking to each other, more production lines and eventually more production plants will become more and more automated. If your manufacturing business hasn’t yet jumped on the automation bandwagon, it’s time, and here are the top five reasons why you should. 1.Reduce labor costs For most manufacturers, labor costs represent the biggest expense and hardest cost to manage (or reduce). It’s no surprise that companies around the globe have begun using automated machinery and equipment to replace human workers on assembly lines. For example, automation is already replacing human labor in areas such as picking and moving parts, assembly, inspection and more. Other examples where automation is producing significant reductions in labor costs include: BOM COMPARE. Reduces expensive engineering time by eliminating the manual comparing of CAD/CAM BOMs against existing BOMs in your ERP system. Improves the speed and reliability of employee software logins and inventory tracking. AUTOMATING PURCHASING. Reduces […]

Chickin Indonesia agricultural start-up makes Forbes Under 30 list

An agricultural start-up initiated by three students from Malang’s Brawijaya University whose app, Chickin, has been downloaded by a thousand farmers across Indonesia, has made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. According to the founders, the application uses Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the productivity of farmers by up to 25 percent. The app was developed by agrotechnology student Ashab Alkahfi, who is serving as the President of Chickin, Tubagus Syailendra from international relations, who is serving as CEO/Chief Executive Officer, and Ahmad Syaifullah from information systems, serving as the CTO/Chief Technology Officer. “Based on initial research, we developed the app in Klaten, Central Java. We built poultry coops as farmers and began our poultry business where we found a number of challenges faced by local farmers. From there, we tried to solve these challenges by means of technology,” Alkahfi explained. The application allows farmers to control the micro-climate inside chicken coops from a distance. Through the technology, farmers can input data, including daily, sales, and production data, to enhance performance and make it more measurable and at the same time, minimise risks through preventive measures. The app also offers a number of features for management of the poultry farm, including data and IoT configuration adaptable to climate, temperature and humidity, as well as recording the age of each poultry. Aside from partnering with 14 poultry farms, Chickin has established cooperation with 100 poultry suppliers in the food industry. Alkahfi said he hopes the app will bring ease to farmers and have a positive impact on them, adding that the farming modernisation technology was developed free of charge under Brawijaya University’s Entrepreneur Incubator. Chickin has seen 22-fold growth in the last 10 months and closed a funding round of Rp35 billion with three global investors. […]

Aerospace: Efficient production when failure is not an option

Aerospace original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) must strive to manufacture aircraft that can travel sustainably for longer distances and support net zero goals. They must produce quality components with tight tolerances from difficult-to-machine materials like HRSAs, while also keeping production cost-effective and error-free — but how? This is where digitalisation and big data come into play. Here, Francis Richt, Digital Machining Business Manager at the metal cutting tool specialist Sandvik Coromant, explains how combined digital and tooling solutions will be essential for error-free production in tomorrow’s aircraft manufacturing industry. That includes its own CoroPlus Machining Insights, CoroPlus Tool Library and Silent Tools Plus process control solutions, which enable users to monitor their machining process and secure a successful output. The aerospace industry faces unique manufacturing challenges. The complexity of the component shapes and structures, combined with the varying tolerances required for different components can make the production process demanding and costly. The nature of aerospace — and its strict quality assurance rules — also means that component production must be error-free. To optimise manufacturing, proper planning and preparation informed by accurate and reliable data is absolutely essential. To support aerospace OEMs, Sandvik Coromant offer several solutions to improve machining processes and to ensure quality and reliability of components. An increasing number of industries are incorporating digital technologies into their manufacturing operations. Digital tools and the data that they can generate on key parameters can give a level of intuition and insight that traditional machining lacks. This is particularly key in heavily regulated industries such as aerospace where accuracy and efficiency are crucial at every stage. The Sandvik Coromant CoroPlus Tool Library is a web-based software that allows users to build and manage their tool library and tool assemblies from standard data on over 900,000 items from several cutting tool manufacturers. The library is […]

Fruit packing technology dramatically cuts packhouse labour needs

An intelligent robotic fruit packing machine that automates the most labour intensive job in the packhouse is proving to be a game-changer for post-harvest operators around the globe. Global Pac Technologies has officially unveiled the Aporo II robotic produce packaging machine which builds on the proven technology of the original Aporo I Produce Packer, first developed in 2018. The latest model can now accommodate twice the throughput, packing 240 fruit per minute, saving between two and four labour units per double packing belt. “Aporo II can be retrofitted across two packing belts instead of one, so it has effectively doubled the throughput and the labour saving that Aporo I could deliver,” explains Cameron McInness, Director of Jenkins Group – a New Zealand-based company which co-founded Global Pac Technologies with US-based Van Doren Sales Inc. “We have been rolling out this new machine with some key customers globally and the results have been dramatic. One of our Australian customers built a new packhouse and installed three of our Aporo II’s. That increased their packhouse production by 30-40 percent and reduced their labour by 50 percent. “Automating the process of placing fruit into trays then allows post-harvest operators to redeploy their scarce labour resources to areas where they can add more value.” McInness says Aporo II’s dual robotic heads are more consistent and reliable than human packers. The technology is now being used in France, the UK, Sweden, Belgium, the US, Australia and New Zealand – primarily to pack apples, and now stone fruit like peaches and nectarines. Work is underway to extend its use to other fruit varieties in the near future. “What’s unique about Aporo I and Aporo II is they are designed for really simple autonomous packing. The machine is very intelligent. It looks at the fruit, orientates […]

Sierra Space to revolutionise space exploration with Siemens’ Xcelerator

Siemens is implementing Xcelerator to establish a fully digital environment from engineering to manufacturing through sustainment, which will help realise goals to develop the future of space transportation, commercial space destination and infrastructure, and create enabling technologies that will build a vibrant, growing and accessible commercial space economy. “At Sierra Space, we are building a platform in space that will be the catalyst for the next breakthrough innovations to benefit life on Earth. Our revolutionary new space platform is being developed using a next generation digital engineering environment that we’ve created in collaboration with Siemens,” Tom Vice, CEO, Sierra Space. “Siemens’ solutions will significantly accelerate development of our unique space platform – the first to combine all aspects of space transportation, space destinations and space applications in a holistic ecosystem.” Siemens’ tools have been foundational during the development of Dream Chaser, and Sierra Space is building on this long-standing collaboration with Siemens as the company fully embraces a digital enterprise. Sierra Space will use Siemens’ Xcelerator in all phases of next-generation Dream Chaser development, including structural, thermal, mechanical, electrical, and software design, vehicle manufacture, requirements verification and complete lifecycle maintenance. The spaceplane is uniquely capable of a smooth 1.5 low-g re-entry for crew and cargo transportation with the ability to land on compatible existing commercial runways worldwide. Representing the next generation of space transportation, NASA contracted Dream Chaser to perform cargo supply and return missions to the International Space Station (ISS), where it can deliver up to 12,000 pounds of cargo in a single trip. Sierra Space is expanding on this long-standing collaboration with Siemens as the company fully embraces the transformation to become a digital enterprise. In addition to Dream Chaser, Sierra Space is also working to design, develop, build, operate, and support a customer-centric destination in Earth […]

How many axes does my robot need?

Manufacturers are incorporating robots into their operations at a significant rate, and given the many benefits that industrial automation has, this is only set to increase. With this growing popularity, industrial robots are available in a huge range of configurations and sizes, with different numbers of axes for a range of applications. Robots can move on anywhere between one and seven axes, with more axes offering more flexibility of movement. However, despite the growing accessibility of robot in industry, it can still be difficult to know which type of robot out of the many now available is the best choice for an application. Traditionally, when someone thinks of an industrial robot, they will picture a robotic arm. These are articulated robots and can mimic the actions of a human arm thanks to their directional control and large range of movement. Other types of robots, such as Cartesian robots or four-axis models such as SCARA robots are more limited, often only able to move on two to four axes. These robots are suited to many applications and certainly have their benefits, but the restrictions on motion can be an issue when more sophisticated movements are required. This is when an articulated robot is a better option. Articulated robots, including six and seven-axis robots, can move vertically and horizontally, but are also able to roll, pitch and yaw —they can rotate around the X, Y and Z axes. This gives them additional range and flexibility. They are typically mounted on a pedestal, with articulation points in the base, body, arm, shoulder, and wrist. This also allows them to work at differing levels and between planes, offering more versatility of motion sequence. Articulated robots are more capable of intricate or complex processes such as automotive assembly due to this ability to accurately manoeuvre. […]

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