EDITOR’S CHOICE
THE COST OF DOWNTIME Unplanned downtime has a steep cost for manufacturers - and preventing it is a major goal of the technologies that will define Industry 4.0 manufacturing.
BRINGING I.T. TO THE FACTORY FLOOR As industry 4.0 approaches, manufacturers are making the jump from legacy computer infrastructure to new network solutions driving faster speeds, better data management and increased energy efficiency.
HARDWARE MEETS HARD HATS At the heart of Industry 4.0 manufacturing is a concept known as interoperability, or the ability to communicate real-time data across numerous Industrial IoT devices. Manufacturing floors use equipment, software protocols and proprietary networks from a number of equipment manufacturers. To date, there has not been a way for these individual protocols and networks to talk to each other. The emergence of Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) will enable this for the first time. Given the high volume of data produced by
today’s smart factories, a robust on-site network is a prerequisite for interoperability. One technology helping to enable it is real-time Deterministic Ethernet, which can better manage the high volume of data in a connected factory. In addition to leading the charge on sensor technology, partners like Analog Devices are pioneering the hardware (such as real-time Deterministic Ethernet switches), forming what amounts to a factory’s central nervous system. “Our role in translating the physical to the digital means that the insight we generate at the edge now must talk to everything else that’s in a particular plant,” says Martin Cotter, senior vice president of worldwide sales and digital marketing at Analog Devices. “Having a real-time, high-bandwidth connection across each system enables greater control of various production processes. That’s driving efficiency, it’s driving more certainty of output and it’s driving a next-generation industrial process,” he says.
With the bedrock of interoperability in place, manufacturers can begin to adopt industry 4.0 manufacturing’s most exciting advances, such as robots and “cobots” capable of working alongside humans on the factory floor. Like autonomous vehicles, these machines are supported by advanced sensing solutions that intuit their surroundings three- dimensionally, ensuring a high degree of safety while they perform repetitive and complex tasks.
Analog Devices
www.analog.com
TOMORROW’S FACTORY Next-generation solutions are bringing the promise of Industry 4.0 to fruition, driving productivity and gains in efficiency, safety and flexibility.
WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS Networking products custom- made for industrial use can enable IoT communication even in harsh manufacturing settings, which can pose challenges with radio frequencies.
ROBOTS AND COBOTS Advanced motion controls and sensing solutions are taking robot-human collaboration out of the realm of science fiction - and into the factory. Partners like ADI can combine different sensing modalities, like vision and time of flight, with connectivity technology such as Deterministic Ethernet to transfer data in real time and have more precise control of robots and cobots. According to one report, the use of these tools could help drive an estimated net savings of $40.4 billion per year for US manufacturers. “We are the source of data. We are where data is born. For 50 years, we've been the company people rely on to solve their toughest engineering challenges. Our experience in this space is the basis for all of the future advancements we’re building with our clients today,” comments Cotter. For manufacturers, taking that next step into the future depends on further investment in the technology underpinning advances in factory automation and flexibility. It is here, at the sensor- driven level where the physical world meets the digital one, that the gains promised by Industry 4.0 are truly being realised.
UKManufacturing Autumn 2022
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