Solving Problems in the World of 4.0

At HighByte, we are continuously navigating and solving problems for industrial companies with a focus on DataOps for Industry 4.0.?

It has been extremely rewarding to speak to over 1K manufacturing companies specifically about Industry 4.0. My role in these conversations has been focused on helping them solve problems with technology. I am eager to share some of my findings in the hopes that it can provide value to anyone who is going on a 4.0 journey.

What I have come to realize is that we are all in a stage of continuous learning because Industry 4.0 technologies and concepts are continuously evolving. In many ways, that is the beauty of it. There is no one size fits all solution. The most important concept to understand is that each environment is unique and the challenges associated with these environments will be different. For example, one industrial company may have 350 plants globally. Of those 350 plants, each one of those plants may have a completely different architecture. Some may use PI System, AWS, and SQL databases. Other plants may use different systems, such as Microsoft Azure and OPC servers. This is common when plants are stood up at different points in time or brownfield acquisitions are made.?Solving problems in different environments first requires understanding the overall goals and unique challenges of the facility and the enterprise, and then finding solutions that can address?those important concepts.

Many of the companies I have spoken with are motivated to adopt Industry 4.0 practices. However, these companies have other goals they need to achieve to get to the promised land of Industry 4.0. These usually have some similar underlying themes.

1.)?Reducing custom software development.

2.)?Creating a scalable architecture.

3.)?Providing data in a usable and understandable format for different business groups.

As industrial environments have evolved, a lot of custom software development has been used to stitch together data and systems. At HighByte, we are passionate about solving this problem. HighByte Intelligence Hub is a software application used to reduce custom code by creating data models of assets, products, and processes which can then be published to different systems without custom code.

The next challenge that industrial organizations are looking to solve is scalability. It is useful to do POCs but how do you know the software or architecture can scale? Will the use case scale if the data is multiplied by 10K or 100K? This is an important factor to take into consideration. HighByte Intelligence Hub is one such software that is made to address scalability requirements. By creating models, you create a standard template and representation of a particular asset, product, or process such that it can be replicated.

The final challenge is making data usable and understandable for different business groups. The language of different business groups is vastly different. The ideal state is one in which a piece of information is understandable for different systems, functions, and users. That is one of the values of creating models in a software such as HighByte Intelligence Hub, which offers context, standards, and normalization.

Problem solving is a holistic approach that involves different functions and teams—of different levels of technical and business aptitude—working together uncover barriers and understand the end goal.