Data acquisition
THREE STRATEGIES TO HELP MANUFACTURERS ACQUIRE AND EXPLOIT SHOP FLOOR DATA
John Lawson, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, discusses how to bring three digital strategies to life and deliver tangible business value for industrial and manufacturing companies.
instructions, customer specifications, machinery information such as vibration and temperature are all being constantly produced in the flow of manufacturing activities. Data is also being garnered at much faster speeds as manufacturers increasingly deploy sensors to gather further evidence on the efficiency of the processes and the status of the machines in the assembly line. However, recent research showed that only a third of this data is put to work – the rest goes unleveraged due to obstacles such as siloed data or inefficient data management practices. That means a lost opportunity.
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Digital applications such as dashboard and analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality and computer vision offer businesses the potential to improve efficiency, reduce costs and mitigate risks, resulting in potential performance improvements of up to 20 per cent. In this article, we discuss how to bring these digital strategies to life and deliver tangible business value for industrial and manufacturing companies.
1. BETTER DATA ACQUISITION TO ENHANCE SHOP FLOOR AND SUPPLY CHAIN VISIBILITY
While the people, processes, systems and machinery on the shop floor produce large amounts of data, there is often an issue with how organisations gather and manage them. Typically, this is done via spreadsheets and paper reports – manual methods that are prone to error and time-consuming. Bringing new data acquisition capabilities is critical in this context. The adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) sensor solutions integrated into existing PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) kits, for example, can enable organisations to acquire more data, in real
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he process of manufacturing involves vast quantities of data and information. The materials and components consumed in the production of goods, assembly
time, enhancing the visibility and processing of shop floor and supply chain events. The use of harmonisation and visualisation tools is another important step in this journey. Harmonisation tools help to unify disparate data fields, formats, dimensions, and columns into a combined dataset, decreasing both the time spent creating accurate insights and the cost of data analysis.
Visualisation tools allow for insight generation and better integration of data points into downstream business processes. Digital dashboards can pull and display key metrics such as output, scrap rate, cycle time and overall equipment effectiveness in a visual way and at one single place, offering opportunities for leaders across the organisation to collaborate and work more efficiently. More advanced dashboard versions have functionalities that support continuous improvement processes, including root cause analysis and debottlenecking. Enhanced data visibility and analytics also benefit product development, helping engineers and product teams consider the impact of improved functionalities on the production chain prior to launching new products.
Better data utilisation can also help manufacturers optimise maintenance activities. For example, in the aerospace and aviation industry, wearable technology solutions can replace manual tasks such as verifying an engineer’s certification or logging their work time. This increases the utilisation of the skilled engineer and helps to improve efficiency, ultimately reducing costs.
2. DESIGN THE RIGHT ARCHITECTURE TO MAXIMISE THE POWER OF IOT
Due to their wireless connectivity, IoT sensors placed in machines and other manufacturing infrastructure can pull data that was previously difficult to gather, such as temperature, vibration,
humidity, light, radiation and CO2 level. Many manufacturers that handle sensitive raw materials now place small devices in containers at warehouses and production lines to detect and immediately alert managers when readings
May 2023 Instrumentation Monthly
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