Manufacturers can take advantage of IIoT to achieve smart, intelligent and connected production processes. The IIoT is a logical extension of automation and connectivity that has been a part of the plant environment for decades, primarily in the area known as machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.
Some of the benefits of IoT applications in manufacturing include:
Production at the edge: By making equipment intelligent enough to self-manage and collaborate with the rest of the manufacturing system, manufacturers can drive overall reliability, predictability and optimization.
Industrial Automation: IIoT connects everything within a plant and provides secured information sharing across multiple locations and business networks. Once machinery and systems are connected within the plant, manufacturers can use this information to automate workflows to maintain and optimize production systems without human intervention.
Real-time visibility: IIoT-enabled devices help to capture key performance indicators from strategic assets to deliver data and insights to the right people at the right time for informed decisions and compliance. By creating visibility tools to access the efficiency of each machine, end users will be able to not only view from any location, but reduce the time to make decisions and act.
Predictive Maintenance: With new sensor information, IIoT can help manufacturers improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), save money by minimizing equipment failure, allow the company to perform planned maintenance, and avoid issues before they can occur. Predictive maintenance capabilities will alert operators when a component needs attention or repair, reducing the need for ongoing inspections.
Process Optimization: With sensor data you’ll have visibility on the many smaller issues that normally go unchecked and can ultimately contribute to significant losses. Saving seconds every hour adds up to major gains in productivity. Sensors can pick up issues you aren’t even looking for, such as a small bottleneck that happens every day at the same time on your production line. By analyzing the data and investigating anomalies early, small corrections can avert a failed quality inspection or speed up the production process.
Better Energy Management: Manage the distribution of energy based on real-time data and situational awareness, as opposed to historical data patterns. Adaptive analytics can enable systems to automatically balance energy loads to reduce stress and prevent overheating.
Business Process: The smart factory extends well beyond its floor. Intelligent products can tell designers how customers are using them and thus enable improvements.