Value from Industry 4.0 in Manufacturing

The 4th Industrial Revolution is not something of the near future. The revolution and its sub-thematic components have trickled down to all sectors of the economy and is warping and forming our day to day modes of social interaction. Digitalisation is often referred to as the face of  Industry 4.0.

However, now the question arises how does it get absorbed and trickles down at every microcosm of the manufacturing to the extent it creates value for the enterprise as well as makes Return on Investment a primary accelerating factor in the business’s long-term goals.

The space of Industry 4.0 is diversely heterogenous and rhizomatic- in a sense that it provides a variety of intensive and flexible solutions which can accommodate a variable scale of the manufacturing process.

Away from the depiction of dystopian 4th Industrial Era in the late 20th Century , the reality of IIOT (Industrial Internet of things) has stratified a plane of efficiency by amalgamating and vectorising every aspect of the manufacturing process.

Earlier, the physical collection of data from the ground processes of the manufacturing plant limited the data retention to only certain macro aspects of a very few and limited performance determining factors.  This used to make the process of  micro-managing the shop floor extremely difficult. It was difficult for the managers to analyse the productivity  because the movements in the manufacturing process were blinded by only certain key factorials. Now with the arrival of IIoT systems the flow of knowledge gap between the top floor supervisory operations and shop floor manufacturing processes is reduced. By providing the manufacturing supervisors live streamlined data of every micro action taking place on the shop floor, IIoT allows the management to considerably increase manufacturing process productivity. This transition from manual data input to digitalised data makes data storage, analysis and makes the shop floor visible without any limitation.  Streamlined data monitoring helps in also checking input capital performance. But this streaming supervision may also result in constant stress amongst the workers and may result in lack of motivation. Companies should make sure that the shop floor workers are engaged and made comfortable about the supervision process. The policies need to be clearly communicated and explained. 

The organic value of clouds lies in the very process of availability of information for specific purposes. By amalgamating the business process under a cumulative IoT ecosystem, we are not limited by our narrow mundane manual data searching and can see the “whole”. Under the IIoT Cloud system, the process becomes ‘Smart’.  The 21st Century is being haunted by the phrase ‘Working Smart’.  

Why Smart?

In the age of smart cities, smartphones, smart televisions we as humans are de-structured from the theological belief of ‘working hard’. It’s not about how many hours you work anymore but how much work can you get done in the least amount of time. It’s not about sweat and tears anymore, but how much manual work can be decentralised and be automated which will help maximise optimal performance. Manual data collection and data interpretation are prone to human error. A multitude of these human errors brings down cost efficiency and raises the COI i.e. the cost of acquiring investments for the enterprise. When you’re in business the primary goal in the short-term period is - avoiding expenditures, this can be as powerful as building out new ways of creating revenue. Seeing this it helps to turn to automation. 

Let us think about an application that delivers data points from an industrial tank, such as heat signatures and liquid level and along with it provide alerts for any abrupt change or abnormalities. Through this system service personnel can remotely monitor the installations, and be rest assured that they will receive necessary data in the event of certain issues, instead we do not have to invest in manual harmful supervision.

By reducing the day to day inefficiencies in business operations we can also improve output, reduce time to market, and even go a step forward to improve expenditures related to workplace injuries. As an example, imagine placing a sensor and a radio device in a dangerous location such as an oil well or mine to sense conditions and send data instead of requiring an employee to venture into that environment regularly to manually gather data? That employee can be better put to use analysing the data gathered, instead of risking injury.

Dependency on IIoT driven blockchains will help by providing stratified and organised scaled data and real-time organic data along with complete and accurate information whenever and wherever they are called for, and this will also be made available from both external and internal databases.

By standardising the manufacturing process using a digitalised supply chain across the globe, reports can be generated automatically which in turn will improve the performance through the  user interfaces based on predefined rules identified. The ability to integrate the information from the past, present and future will lead to effective decision making and improved benchmarking capabilities. Adoption of Blockchain technology and its integration with IOT driven systems, information availability will be made transparent and can be protected. Being a system that helps in seeing through the business informational flow needs it also adds an innovative perspective to the process. 

But we also need to test out the angle where the technology should be viewed as a tool to address a specific need but not as a goal in itself. Therefore, it is important to understand the primary problem your business is trying to solve and consider the value technology  could bring to your business. 

Technologies like blockchain, cloud, IOT add value by fundamentally enhancing trust between multiple parties by promoting transparency and fairness of the transactions.  

These provide assurance to  multiple parties, including regulators, that data is valid and hasn’t been tampered with and thereby promising data integrity. Technologies also enable process efficiency and reduce costs by removing layers of middle men in processes between multiple parties. By providing a single source of data transaction and providing the assurance of maintaining data integrity the transition from a manual form of data management to a digitalised platform is made efficient not only reducing the cost of investment but also by considering the ethical considerations in data ownership. Data privacy standards and ownership of data should also be properly governed. 

Return on Investment can be enhanced if we deliver value to the customers. Technology should be implemented by keeping the major stakeholders in mind. While shareholders are the main category we must not forget that if the customers and employees are not taken care of, the company will not be able to generate even a top-line in the long term future, ROI will then be a distant possibility. Thus. ROI and value creation for stakeholders go hand in hand. Let's embrace the technology with proper care and governance and create value.  

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