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Welcome to Industree 4.0 for December 2020, exclusively sponsored by SAP. We lead off with another great article from Alfred Becker of SAP. That is followed by regular columnists Pat Dixon and Jim Thompson. We'll wrap with other perspectives from around the industry. |
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By Alfred Becker, SAP SE, Global Lead for Paper and Packaging.
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How Industry 4.0 Boosts Productivity and Profitability In Intelligent Paper Mills & Packaging Facilities |
With such high expectations for Industry 4.0, it’s no surprise that 48% of manufacturing leaders report that their companies have strategies in place and implemented for applying Industry 4.0 technologies to plants and production processes.
- 83% of manufacturing leaders say that “Industry 4.0 is “extremely or very important” to their companies.
- 56% indicate “Industry 4.0 will have a significant impact” on their business and industry in the next 5 years.
The “factory of the future” is here today
When it delved a little further, 50% reported that Industry 4.0 is a competitive differentiator today, and a further 42% said that it would be in the future.
They report that on average, their companies have incorporated smart devices or embedded intelligence into 41% of their production processes and equipment, and 88% expect that percentage to increase in the next two years.
Specific to the paper and packaging industry, McKinsey “estimates that the paper & forest products industry has much to gain from embracing the digital revolution”:
- Forest products, paper and packaging companies, by using AI and analytics in area of fiber yield, chemistry and energy consumption are seeing a cost reduction on total cost base up to 7 %.
- In addition, they are seeing increasing quality and a 3% OEE improvement due to throughput debottlenecking.
Intelligent Factories are more flexible, agile and responsive
When it comes to manufacturing, Industry 4.0 typically involves the application of equipment sensors, controls, and other digitally aware devices, which are then networked, sharing data to trigger maintenance, prompt automated changes within production — and to provide executives with insights for digital decision-making and analytics.
Organizations are gaining increased shop floor visibility, identifying process bottlenecks and quality defects, and managing operations with greater resilience. This, in turn, facilitates smart factory capabilities where rigid production processes are transformed into flexible manufacturing capabilities – making it possible to shift from just tonnage to satisfying real customer demands at highest profitability levels.
Intelligence is often driven by device connectivity, the vertical integration of sensor /machine data into a horizontal business process. This IT/OT convergence allows to further automate manufacturing operations while taking into account customer-specific requirements such as allowed interval for paper quality parameters. Machine triggered demand signals are responded to by automatic guided vehicles to supply the right materials directly from the warehouse or to pick up paper rolls right after the machine due to lack of storage space on the shop-floor requiring such “hot loading”. In-line quality inspections are automated based on artificial intelligence to help manufacturing companies identify defects early in the production process and avoiding re-work, thus operating at lower cost. In the meantime, quality parameters are not only measured but predicted based on sensor data, to correct the paper production process even before it fails.
The numbers speak for themselves
Most manufacturing leaders report that Industry 4.0 has or will:
- Increase productivity (88%)
- Increase profitability (74%)
- Improve product quality (48%)
- Increase customer satisfaction (43%)
- Improve machine reliability/up time (42%)
- Increase worker safety (41%)
Furthermore, on the topic of workers’ safety: Workers’ position can be determined precisely through wearable devices such as smart watches, and coordinates can be set into context of functional structures of the mill like a crane. The concept of geo-fencing (…don’t enter a certain area...) can be enhanced now: It dynamically defines no-go areas on demand, for example, only when a crane is in operation.
The time for Industry 4.0 and the Intelligent Factory is NOW
An intelligent mill or packaging facility is agile, adaptable, and resilient. It’s also elastic and able to deal with varying production volumes and changing customer requirements.
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By Pat Dixon, PE, PMP
President of
www.DPAS-INC.com, offering project management and engineering for industrial automation projects.
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In the United States there are about 35 thousand motor vehicle deaths per year. The odds of dying in an auto accident are about 700 times higher than in air travel. Wow, it sure is dangerous, isn’t it? Why would you ever want to be on a highway?
I don’t notice any lack of demand on roads anywhere I have been. Houston has one of the highest per capita lane miles in the US yet I hit gridlock nearly every time I go there. The reason is despite the risk, the public infrastructure of highways we have is the best way to go in many cases. You don’t have the resources to build your own private I-10. Even if you allowed others to use it, you can’t afford to employ people to keep drunk drivers off of it. You can be careful and get a car with appropriate safety provisions. You can drive defensively and use technology to avoid potential dangers. None of this will give you completely safe, no risk transportation but clearly the system works and if the dangers frighten you then you will be paralyzed by paranoia.
In like manner, the Internet is a dangerous place. There are hackers and viruses and lots of other garbage. However, like the highways they are publicly available, making it affordable. With proper consideration, design, and investment you can connect with low risk.
In the Industry 3.0 era it was possible to connect an industrial facility outside of its gates. I worked for a large vendor in the 1990s that offered a way to connect engineers like me at their corporate office to a facility that had their DCS. The solution was expensive, low speed, and marginally reliable. However, it did indeed allow me to connect to their DCS to diagnose problems and use engineering tools to fix them without the delay and expense of travel.
Connectivity to a public network in the Industry 3.0 era was too scary to be considered. For example, I upgraded a municipal power plant to the latest DCS and OPC server technology, but all the server machines had their network interface cards removed because they did not want them connected outside the property. Part of the project was to generate reports that were automatically printed on paper every morning.
The Industry 4.0 era is defined as the Internet connectivity of industrial production. To be Industry 4.0 means to accept and embrace the risk of danger on the Internet highway. It means that a DCS that was inherently secure because it was disconnected and proprietary now is open to the outside world. Without this connectivity, you don’t have Industry 4.0 and will not get its benefits. Your competitors that do embrace Industry 4.0 and address the risks will leave you in the dust and you will not be able to compete.
It also needs to be understood that there are risks remaining stuck in Industry 3.0. There are the economic risks I already mentioned in which your competitors will leave you behind. There are also obsolescence risks as you remain tied to hardware and software that are made by a single vendor and can reach end of life. I know facilities that today are dependent on eBay for spare parts. That is very risky. But on top of those risks are security risks that are bigger than hackers on the Internet. Do you have locks on the doors to your server room? Do you have default passwords on your computers? Statistically it is a much bigger risk for someone onsite to yank cables, power off machines, or login and mess with your system. Do you have Windows NT running for years with no patches? The most famous intrusion of a virus in an industrial control system was Stuxnet, which came from a USB drive. If you cutoff your system from the rest of the world, your only recourse to install software or copy files might be the USB drive. Do you have a virus scanner and validation for USB drives?
Remaining in Industry 3.0 can be dangerous. Every industrial facility should be thinking about getting on the road to Industry 4.0. Enjoy the drive!
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As if Amazon was not already the ubiquitous partner in your home life, they now want to become involved in maintenance of your paper mill or box plant.
Their new condition monitoring service is called Amazon Monitron. This involves inexpensive sensors you attach to rotating or vibrating machinery to measure vibration and temperature data. It is captured locally with the sensors, sent via low energy Blue Tooth to a local WiFi gateway. From there the data is stored on AWS. You can use it for alerts, analysis, whatever you want.
The whole system is economical to install...the Gateway and five sensors are currently USD 715. Additional sensors are available for 5-packs for USD 575. It costs USD50/year for the monitoring service for each sensor. Currently only available in the Northern Virginia area, but I am sure will be rolled out nationwide soon.
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Engineer the new normal with AI and Automation |
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By James Soppwith
adl Group
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We understand balancing the books will always be a key dichotomy with technological investment. However, by leveraging advancements in areas such as supply chain automation and AI, businesses can set themselves on a winning path for 2021 and beyond. |
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What's Really Happening with IIOT Technology in 2021 |
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By Ray Almgren
CEO at Swift Sensors
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In 2021, we’ll see factories, food-service operators, and transportation companies get more out of the sensor networks and remote wireless monitoring capabilities they quickly adopted this year—and we’ll see more companies in these industries add remote sensor systems to stay competitive. But the biggest IIoT-related gains in 2021 may not be the ones that typically make tech news headlines. |
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The real value of IOT is transformative innovation |
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What IoT does not do is steal jobs. It is a technology that improves visibility into operations and processes – helps manage them better. But someone still must go do the actual work. IoT is a technology that has been developed to enhance people’s lives, by helping them become more effective. IoT is usually a small, battery-powered device that uses the internet to communicate with smart systems, giving you real-time, real-world information that is valuable and relevant.
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Why The Industrial IoT Is Finally Ready for Prime Time |
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Olivier Pauzet
Sierra Wireless
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As edge-to-cloud infrastructure solutions and cloud-based IoT application platforms increasingly enable a more simplified IIoT to cross the chasm separating early adopters from other OEMs, expect to see many more manufacturing companies deploying Industry 4.0 applications. And by using these IIoT applications to automate manual, error-prone processes, generate insights that improve their decision making, and offer new services to their customers, these companies will transform their businesses – as well as the global economy. |
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Industree 4.0 is exclusively sponsored by SAP |
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