New era of emerging technologies, industry 4.0 and manufacturing

The fourth industrial revolution is going on smoothly – thanks to the technical integration we wrote as science fiction a few years ago. The previous industrial revolution focused on introducing new tools and processes, but Industry 4.0 needed unprecedented system integration within the organization and made a wise investment among partners in the name of improved collaboration and data sharing.
Let us now look at some of these technologies and their impact on manufacturing.

What is Industry 4.0?

To understand Industry 4.0 and its direction, we need to first understand the development process we have traveled. The following is a brief description of the first three industrial revolutions:
● Industry 1.0: In the late 18th and 19th centuries, manufacturing focused on optimizing labor by introducing more efficient tools and processes, including steam engines and even animal-assisted machinery.
● Industry 2.0: At the beginning of the 20th century, the use of steel and electricity began to appear in factories. The emergence of electrification equipment has spawned assembly lines, greatly increasing product yield and overall production efficiency.
● Industry 3.0: Until the third industrial revolution of the late 1950s, manufacturers began to combine their power manufacturing infrastructure with computer control and digital systems. Industry 3.0 laid the seeds for the truly automated future expected by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Every different manufacturing era solved the problem at the time with the tools available at the time. However, they all have in common that they seek greater interconnectivity between manufacturing systems, improve accessibility and transparency of information, faster and more efficient production models, and introduce devices that require less manual intervention. .

Industry 4.0 is the inevitable result of the first few manufacturing eras, but what is even more impressive is that its potential is so great that many of its independent innovations deserve to be explored in more detail.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT)
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) is one of the most promising and worthwhile aspects of Industry 4.0. In fact, it is basically the backbone of Industry 4.0.

Broadly speaking, it describes a way to connect digital systems to physical systems to produce an intelligent, transparent, and efficient infrastructure. You may have heard the word "smart factory". If you can understand the concept, you know that it is the future of manufacturing. However, we cannot achieve this without a significant investment in digital physical systems and IoT devices.

Industrial IoT tools allow factories to monitor their environmental conditions—humidity, temperature, lighting control, etc.—and change them automatically or through remote human-computer interaction as needed. However, this is not all.
Factories investing in IIoT technology can also better understand their operational data, for example, when connected material handling equipment monitors slower or blocked conveyor belt moving products, it can act as a regulator of product throughput.

IIOT equipment also makes maintenance work smarter and more proactive. Factory equipment can measure its own performance when maintenance is required and issue maintenance notifications in a timely manner, usually before a complete failure of the equipment.

There are more use cases for Industry 4.0. In fact, it also extends to each of the following technical areas and provides a central system for other technologies to work together.

cloud computing
The Internet of Things is a tool for collecting meaningful data, while the cloud is a tool for data movement. First, the cloud platform facilitates data sharing, including data sharing across multiple production facilities, within a single department, and between business partners.

Some of the terms used in conjunction with cloud computing include edge computing and fog computing, which are very similar to one another and rely on the interconnected infrastructure provided by the Industrial Internet of Things. Fog computing refers to a network architecture that is spread across many nodes, including industrial IoT devices, while edge computing moves intelligent collection and analysis to the edge of operations and close to data sources.

Big data and analysis
In short, big data is the process of analyzing information collected from a variety of sources. Industrial control systems and networked machines are two potential sources. Others include customer relationship management software, enterprise planning platforms, and even data collected from web traffic, search engine results, social media, customer service interactions, and more.

The ultimate goal of big data and analytics is to make more decisions in real-time or near real-time situations. Not surprisingly, 70% of the most successful distribution companies have incorporated some analytical capabilities into their enterprise planning systems.

Artificial intelligence and autonomous robots
As we have already seen, most of these technologies are nested together like Russian dolls. Industrial IoT devices provide real-time information to the cloud, while the cloud distributes this data to the analytics platform and other areas where it is needed, while Big Data provides closer collaboration and information sharing for multiple facilities, partners, and even industries. s method.

Artificial intelligence is helping smart manufacturers and factories combine each of these technologies to bring us closer to a world where there are no human errors and no manual work. As we know, artificial intelligence is becoming indispensable in predicting customer behavior, predicting machine failures, automating inventory processes, and reordering raw materials.

The future has more potential. Generative design is becoming a way to create more efficient product designs with certain fixed parameters. It works as follows: Human engineers use the generation design software to specify parameters such as material usage, desired tolerances for the final design, and even cost requirements. Then, the artificial intelligence in the program generates one or more physical designs that meet the required criteria.

As artificial intelligence matures, we are witnessing the proliferation of autonomous technologies, including robotics. Collaborative robots, also known as cobots, are an important technology for attracting robot factories. Cobots work with human workers to effectively reduce the burden on manual workers.

In an assembly plant, collaborative robots can lift and carry heavy objects, such as engine parts or car panels, while human workers do fine and dexterous work, such as welding them in place.

In other factory environments, we can expect cobots to perform more important inspection tasks and other tasks that require considerable attention to detail and costly errors.

Augmented reality (AR)
Augmented Reality (AR) technology is a technology with great potential in various manufacturing related fields. In fact, AR devices like Microsoft's HoloLens and Google Glass are targeting industry giants who want to increase employee productivity, security and accuracy.

In a manufacturing facility, AR headsets allow technicians and engineers to project schematics and assembly instructions directly into the real world. Think of a stage in an assembly car where workers with AR can see a detailed "decomposition" view of the car in their field of view. Service technicians can place manuals and detailed checklists in their field of view to ensure they don't miss any steps.

Augmented reality allows for extremely detailed simulations to map the real world without the risk of the same damage or equipment failure. Machine operators can verify calibration settings without the risk of damaging the machine and reduce startup time by reducing real-world trial and error.

Additive manufacturing
Additive manufacturing, including 3D printing, has to be as scalable as the previous generation of manufacturing techniques, such as injection molding, and there is still a long way to go. However, it is rapidly expanding from niche applications to the regular business of manufacturers around the world that may be in the near future.
One of the most attractive ways to put additive manufacturing into practice is rapid prototyping. Consider the benefits of using generative design and 3D printing to quickly produce and test products in the real world before accelerating production. After that, many of the 3D printer materials used for prototyping, called filaments, can be recycled.

Resins, nylons, polystyrenes and plastics – such as ABS and PLA plastics – are some of the most commonly used materials in today's 3D printing. However, industrial-scale printers can easily produce replacement parts made of aluminum, steel, and other metals with tighter tolerances and more sophisticated designs. Even wood, stone and bamboo can be used together with eco-plastics as printed fibers for environmentally friendly products with an undeniable tactile appeal.

Horizontal and vertical system integration
Ultimately, each of these areas of technology development has the same goal: cohesion between department and employee functions, between multiple companies and supply chain partners. Achieving this horizontal and vertical system integration requires a strong network physical infrastructure. For example, a true smart factory may require each of the following types of system integration:
● Arrangement of incoming goods, such as goods that have just been pulled, loaded from the truck onto the automatic drum and passed through the RFID scanner. These scanners automatically verify the count and send the information to the smart facility system. The system transfers the goods to wherever it is needed – whether it is temporarily stored or transferred directly to the assembly shop.
● Multiple companies working together in a shared supply chain can participate in system integration to automate part reordering and synchronize their picking and delivery schedules.
• Multiple industrial systems are combined in an emerging trend called “digital twins”. The survival and death of manufacturing companies are determined by the level of sophistication of their business activities, which means that there is no need for excess inventory. Enterprise Planning Software draws the best conclusions about future inventory levels based on past and current partner and customer data. The automated manufacturing system calls the digital schematic - digital twins - and sends them to the plant equipment. The computerized assembly and handling equipment then works until the requirements are met.

Vertical system integration within the plant and horizontal system integration between partners is an inevitable future for manufacturing. This interconnected system network means more streamlined, more efficient production, and it also offers significant cost savings with lower error rates and fewer transmission errors between departments and partners.

Achieving this future requires compatibility between industrial control systems and digital management platforms, which in turn requires collaboration between partners or the use of APIs. However, once the parties understand these benefits, it is easy to overcome these obstacles.

Network security in Industry 4.0
Of course, all of these connections raise serious concerns about cybersecurity and, in turn, new technologies designed to protect intellectual property, customer information, and operational data from snooping.

In order to maintain the security of advanced manufacturing infrastructure, several key issues need to be addressed. Authentication must be performed and access control to plant networks and network physical systems; reliable and encrypted communication between partners is critical to protecting data in transit; data centers that store and analyze industrial information require powerful numbers and physics Protection to prevent potential hacking.

Some of these technologies are still relatively new, so that their safety has not received enough attention. Even industrial-scale heating and cooling equipment, if it uses the IIoT for remote operation and diagnostics, is a potential point of failure and is easily exploited by cybercriminals.

Extensive collaboration across smart factories and supply chains means very careful review of equipment and hardware and software vendors. Major technology companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Cisco, General Electric and Oracle are providing networking solutions for industrial IoT and future industries. Ultimately, however, it depends on whether the facility manager, CTO, and CEO are fully aware of the underlying technology to make informed, informed decisions when choosing a partner.

Industry 4.0 will change the world
It is right to see these technologies as the beginning of another industrial revolution, which together represent a top-down re-imagination of the entire manufacturing industry. However, don't think of them as future technologies – they exist and provide a competitive advantage for companies that recognize their potential.