Manufacturing Killer Apps in the Industrial Internet

1. Introduction:

We can hardly get through a week without reading of hundreds of new “Industrial Internet” visions, promises and potential applications. The current marketing hype makes the early exaggerated promises of PLM and ERP seem almost “Amish” by comparison (I.e. unassuming and under stated).

By thinking through the important fundamentals of the Industrial Internet (the technology stacks, the required standards and the value chain delivery methods) we will be able to more quickly define, develop and deliver the Industrial Internet’s Manufacturing Killer Apps which are made possible by the disruptive potential of a connected world.

To miss or gloss over these fundamentals will force us to relive the expensive, time consuming and career altering failures of early PLM and ERP System deployments. Failures that some people claim have caused PLM and ERP systems to under deliver on 50-60% of their early promises even to this day. (Google: Early ERP Failures to read more on this subject).

My background is in the software development and deployment of disruptive technologies in 3D CAD & PLM Part and Assembly Design, Manufacturing Process Automation and Embedded Factory Quality and Inspection. In particular, the deployment of the “Digital Thread” and “Digital Twin” onto the manufacturing shop floor (aka enabling The Brilliant Factory).

The focus of this article will be on identifying the Industrial Internet’s disruptive technology fundamentals as it relates to discrete part and build to order design and manufacturing processes:

Products and Processes that are found within industry verticals such as Aerospace & Aviation, Military & Defense, Power & Water, Medical Devices, Transportation, Energy, Machine Design and Consumer Products Design.

2. Defining the Industrial Internet Disruptive Product & Process Categories:

Geoffrey Moore (author of Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado) uses the following definitions of Disruptive Innovation and New Product Categories. Which do a good job to help frame the conversation we need to have in these early stages of the Industrial Internet disruptive technology deployment:

-Definition of a Disruptive Innovation:

An innovation type that initiates a growth market by creating a new product category through one of two mechanisms: discontinuous technology or value chain discontinuity.

 -Definition of a New Product Category:

A term used by customers to classify what they are buying and distinguish it from other purchasing choices. Emerging categories are typically defined by naming one or more reference competitors.

• As an example, using the definition of Product Category above, we watched the “PLM Software Category” evolve from CAPE (Computer Aided Process Engineering) to PDM (Product Data Management) to what we now know as the PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) Software Category. With the three top reference competitors being Dassault Systems, Siemens PLM and PTC).
•  Similarly, we have seen the “ERP Software Category” evolve from MRP (Manufacturing Requirements Planning) to MRP II (Manufacturing Resources Planning) to what we now know as the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Software Category. With the three top reference competitors being SAP, Oracle and Microsoft.

 At its onset, the Industrial Internet seems to be shaping up into at least four (4) related but distinct disruptive Product Categories. Related in that they will leverage the connection of things (product, processes and people) into new disruptive software products and services. Distinct in that they address different problems found within the existing discrete part and build to order design and manufacturing of product, processes and the delivery of product related customer services.

 For the purposes of this article these four (4) disruptive Product Categories will be identified as:

1. The Design of Smart Connected Products (uniting Mechanical, Electrical and Software design)
2. The Development of Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes
3. The Delivery of Smart Connected Product Services
4. The Creation of (and connection to) an Industrial Internet Platform 

Knowing which companies and partnerships will become the top reference competitors in these New Product Categories is too early to tell. However, history tells us that those technology companies and partnerships that first deliver (to real production users) the disruptive promises of the Industrial Internet combined with an easy to scale value chain for future customers will gain first mover advantage, will quickly grow to 50%+ market share leadership and will remain as the top reference competitor throughout the lifetime of this Product Category.

The remainder of this article will focus on The Development of Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes (item 2 above) Product Category.

3. This New Product Category Promises to Provide:

Software that will enables the manufacturing enterprise to automatically and semi-automatically create manufacturing processes directly from the design data (3D Mechanical design, electrical design and software design), known as the Digital Thread and

Software, sensors and connectivity that will connect streams of production data coming from the shop floor execution systems and data analytics to the Digital Thread, producing a real-time production data (As Built) equivalent (aka a Digital Twin) for each of the discrete parts and build to order physical products.

The results being improved time to market from product release to product delivery, reduced overall work in process inventory costs, reduced factory downtime, optimized pairing of design requirements to process capabilities and improve overall product quality and customer satisfaction with the product.

Essentially:

• The Digital Thread will define the As Designed and As Planned layout for the Smart Connected Product and The Smart Connected Manufacturing Process. Sort of like laying out the “DNA-scaffoldings” onto which the Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes will stream their big data analytics information and corrective guidance.
• The Digital Twin will represent the real-time As Built “growth” of the Smart Connected Product as it moves through the manufacturing process leading to the digital equivalent of the final As Shipped “birth” of the physical product to the customer. In some respects, similar to how cells know how to interpret human DNA-scaffolding and then grow from that DNA-code the unique organs and the necessary body parts to create a perfectly functioning new born baby.

Upon delivery of the final Smart Connected Physical Product to the customer,

• The As Used performance and health of the Smart Connected Physical Product can be collected, monitored, tracked and compared (with big data analytics) to the specifications captured in the Digital Thread and the simulated performance responses of the Digital Twin.
• Then big data analytics can be applied to provide insight and future design and manufacturing optimizations to minimize future differences between the As Designed, As Planned, As Built, As Shipped and As Used Smart Connected Product and Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes. 

4. This New Product Category will include:

New software platform(s) which will serve to unite the Design of new Smart Connected Products (and the design of non-connected products) with new Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes which will be able to:

Automatically Align new multi-disciplined Engineering eBOMs (which will include integrated Mechanical, Electrical and Software Application designs) with new multi-disciplined Manufacturing Process mBOMs and work instructions.

• For example, a complex manufacturing process plan (pBOM) that outlines when and how to load specific firmware assets and software applications within the physical products manufacturing assembly sequence will be developed in parallel with the multi-disciplined eBOM.
• Then at regular intervals in the emerging design, the eBOM and the pBOM will be “aligned” based on perhaps a relational database foreign key, or through a big data analytics pattern matching algorithm.
• The results of this regular “alignment” between the eBOM and the pBOM will be the constant synchronization and instrumentation of human visible 3D CAD data in the context of the process plan (pBOM), other mBOMs and resultant work instructions.
• Gone will be the days when manufacturing needs to struggle with long lists of mind-numbing excel spread sheets (which would get even longer when you add electronics and software bills of materials) and endless strings of part numbers. These process plans and mBOMs will now be regularly synchronized with the required, current and graphically intuitive 3D design, electronic and software component data.

Automatically Generate, manufacturing process plans, human verifiable work instructions and smart machine executable instructions directly from the design intent stored within the electrical engineering designs data and mechanical engineering Model Based Definition-MBD data embedded within the Digital Thread.

• For example, similar to how electrical designs have been able to automatically generate manufacturing process data for PCB board production, semantically complete Model Based Definition (MBD) practices incorporated by Mechanical Designers will be used to automatically generate manufacturing process data for discrete parts and assembly processes (such as NC-machine tool subtractive processes, 3D Printer additive processes, automated inspection verification processes and assembly sequence process).
• In parallel with the auto-generated smart machine executable instructions, their equivalent human readable 3D context specific manufacturing Process mBOMs or work instructions will also be generated. This parallel generation of human readable information will guarantee that the correct and current Engineering and Manufacturing data required for that specific process step come together correctly (think of a visually accurate Human to Process Interface – HPI, similar to how Machine Tool Automation requires a Human to Machine Interface - HMI).
• When running Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes which are fully or mostly automated, it will be extremely important for “human” manufacturing process experts to monitor and understand what the automated factory is about to be instructed to do in a visibly understandable context (instrumented with the 3D representation of the mBOM) specific to each automated operation.
• These 3D human verifiable process plans and work instructions created automatically and in parallel with their equivalent “machine executable” factory automation instructions will prevent catastrophic shop floor failures from occurring if (and when) incorrect machine executable instructions reach the automated factory floor.

Automatically Track Shop Floor Accuracies, Variabilities, Failures and automatically schedule maintenance and repair for factory floor machines and equipment (tools, fixtures and gauges) through sensor enriched, SCADA & OPC enhanced Smart Machines and Smart Tools.

• This will not only maximize factory floor uptime but will also track automated machine and equipment accuracies and repeatability’s to make sure they are “capable” of producing the parts and assemblies defined within the required engineering specifications captured within the Digital Thread.
• By doing so, Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes will be able to reduce costly Work in Process Inventories (WIP) caused by failing machines and to monitor and converge on elusive product quality problems created by inadequate production tooling accuracies and growing machine tool variations.

5. An Industrial Internet Killer App for Discrete Manufacturing:

“Design Driven” Auto-generated Build to Order Manufacturing Processes…

Currently, we see that well-structured electrical design practices (enabled through ECAD and EDA software) produce standardized design descriptions which can drive fabricators production processes of integrated circuits and complex and specialized Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs).

Similarly,

• The weaving of the Digital Thread (enabled with well-structured 3D CAD Model Based Definition-MBD practices)
• With the Digital Twin (enabled with Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes)
• Will allow for the automatic generation of machine executable and human readable, 3D-intuitive manufacturing Process Plans, mBOMs and work instructions – aka the 3D Model Based Enterprise – MBE.

For end to end automation of discrete part and build to order design and manufacturing processes.

Allowing Discrete Part and Build to Order manufacturing companies to deploy the automation, scalability, factory agility and rapid retooling processes currently enjoyed by the PCB manufacturing industry.

Said another way, the confluence of these two (2) Product Categories:

1. The Design of Smart Connected Products with
2. The Development of Smart Connected Manufacturing Processes

         …Will enable the truly “Brilliant Factory” Killer App...

 Your thoughts and comments are welcome. Please send to:

[email protected]

Thank you for your interest…

Chris Garcia

#digitaltransformation, #digitaltwin, #digitalthread, #IIoT, #mbse

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In a few weeks I will publish the next article entitled “Achieving the Manufacturing Killer App.

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The New Industrial Internet Articles written by Chris Garcia

• Getting the Manufacturing Fundamentals Right

         (written Oct 30th, 2015)

• Manufacturing Killer Apps.

        (written Dec 30th, 2015)

• Achieving the Manufacturing Killer App.

        (next up)