1. Industry 1.0 was based on the introduction of mechanical production equipment driven by water and steam power. Industry 2.0 was based on mass production achieved by division of labor and the use of electrical energy. Industry 3.0 was based on the use of electronics and IT to further automate production. Industry 4.0 was based on the use of cyber-physical systems.
2. The Smart Factory is quickly becoming a real place, where the technology and capabilities developed under Industry 4.0 will be put to work. Connecting real machines with information technologies and the Internet will increase productivity, add unprecedented levels of flexibility to manufacturing, and leverage the benefits of new business models and value creation networks.
NINE PILLARS
1. Technology forming the foundation for Industry 4.0 will transform production with isolated, optimized cells coming together as a fully integrated, automated, and optimized production flow, leading to greater efficiencies and changing traditional production relationships among suppliers, producers, and customers—as well as between human and machine.
2. Big Data and Analytics - The collection and comprehensive evaluation of data from many different sources—production equipment and systems as well as enterprise- and customer-management systems—will become standard to support real-time decision making. Semiconductor manufacturers can decrease product failures by correlating single-chip data captured in the testing phase at the end of the production process with process data collected in the wafer status phase earlier in the process. In this way, manufacturers can identify patterns that help discharge faulty chips early in the production process and improve production quality.
3. Autonomous Robots - Robots are evolving for even greater utility and becoming more autonomous, flexible, and cooperative. Eventually, they will interact with one another and work safely side by side with humans and learn from them. For example, interconnected robots can work together and automatically adjust their actions to fit the next unfinished product in line. High-end sensors and control units enable close collaboration with humans. Similarly, a two-armed robot designed to assemble products (such as consumer electronics) alongside humans with two padded arms and computer vision allowing for safe interaction and parts recognition.
4. Simulation - Simulations will be used more extensively in plant operations leveraging real-time data to mirror the physical world in a virtual model, which can include machines, products, and humans. This allows operators to test and optimize the machine settings for the next product in line in the virtual world before the physical changeover, thereby driving down machine setup times and increasing quality.
5. Horizontal and Vertical System Integration - With Industry 4.0, companies, departments, functions, and capabilities will become much more cohesive, as cross-company, universal data-integration networks evolve and enable truly automated value chains. For instance, a collaboration platform could serves as a common workspace for design and manufacturing collaboration and is available as a service on a private cloud. It manages the complex task of exchanging product and production data among multiple partners.
6. The Industrial Internet of Things - With the Industrial Internet of Things, more devices—sometimes including even unfinished products—will be enriched with embedded computing and connected using standard technologies. This allows field devices to communicate and interact both with one another and with more centralized controllers, as necessary. It also decentralizes analytics and decision making, enabling real-time responses. Manufacturers can outfit a production facility for valves with a semiautomated, decentralized production process. Products are identified by radio frequency identification codes, and workstations “know” which manufacturing steps must be performed for each product and can adapt to perform the specific operation.
7. Cybersecurity - With the increased connectivity and use of standard communications protocols that come with Industry 4.0, the need to protect critical industrial systems and manufacturing lines from cybersecurity threats increases dramatically. As a result, secure, reliable communications as well as sophisticated identity and access management of machines and users are essential.
8. The Cloud - With Industry 4.0, more production-related undertakings will require increased data sharing across sites and company boundaries. Machine data and functionality will increasingly be deployed to the cloud, enabling more data-driven services for production systems. Even systems that monitor and control processes may become cloud based.
9.Additive Manufacturing - 3-D printing are currently used to prototype and produce individual components. With Industry 4.0, these additive-manufacturing methods will be widely used to produce small batches of customized products that offer construction advantages, such as complex, lightweight designs. High-performance, decentralized additive manufacturing systems will reduce transport distances and stock on hand.
10.Augmented Reality - Companies will make much broader use of augmented reality to provide workers with real-time information to improve decision making and work procedures such as workers receiving repair instructions on how to replace a particular part as they are looking at the actual system needing repair. This information may be displayed directly in workers’ field of sight using devices such as augmented-reality glasses. Another application is virtual training via a virtual world, operators can learn to interact with machines by clicking on a cyber representation. They also can change parameters and retrieve operational data and maintenance instructions.
PRODUCERS
1. The next wave of manufacturing will affect producers’ entire value chain, from design to after sales service and production processes will be optimized through integrated IT systems replacing today’s insular manufacturing cells with fully automated, integrated production lines.
2. Products, production processes, and production automation will be designed and commissioned virtually in one integrated process and through the collaboration of producers and suppliers. Physical prototypes will be reduced to an absolute minimum.
3. Manufacturing processes will increase in flexibility and allow for the economic production of small lot sizes. Robots, smart machines, and smart products that communicate with one another and make autonomous decisions will provide this flexibility.
4. Manufacturing processes will be enhanced through learning and self-optimizing pieces of equipment such as adjusting their own parameters as they sense certain properties of the unfinished product.
5. Automated logistics, using autonomous vehicles and robots, will adjust automatically to production needs.
SMART FACTORY
1. Below is the process for how one customer’s order for hydraulic technology is handled more intelligently and efficiently by leveraging the capabilities of multiple Industry 4.0 systems and processes.
2. Customer order is placed - An industrial OEM orders 20 hydraulic drives with electronic controls, with multiple pump displacements transmitted to the manufacturer’s information systems. The data for the order is connected and shared with different systems, like Enterprise Resource Planning or Manufacturing Execution System.
3. Value creation network engaged - This information flows in two directions allocating machine and staff and at the same time sending information to outside suppliers listing the materials needed for production.
4. Workpieces tagged for efficient manufacturing - The production process starts with the basic pump body and drive components. All the needed components and the pump get an ID-tag which enables these components to guide themselves through the factory. This ensures that all products will be in the right place, at the right time, for maximum efficiency.
5. Self-guided production proceeds - when the pump body passes the intelligent station, its ID-tag is scanned. That data is transferred to the cloud server and the interactive communication platform. This platform gathers all the customer’s order specifications and requirements, and displays what will be produced via collecting, processing and visualizing all relevant production line data in real-time.
6. Intelligent and autonomous workstations at work - Assistance is adapted to the individual needs, skills and language of the worker and intelligently leads the worker through the assembly process. Wven handheld assembly tools have smart technology to connect man and machine better and the assembler gets feedback to know when the screw is completely tight for example.
7. Real-time information exchange supports order modification - The customer has determined that they need to change the pump displacement on five of the 20 ordered pumps. The manufacturer has real-time data from the complete production process. A change to pump displacements is still possible within the same delivery time. The configuration change is made and confirmed to the customer, and orders for the new parts are sent to suppliers in the value creation network.
8. Delivery to customer on time and on target - The pump order is complete, enhanced with a virtual image that includes order-related data and all data saved during manufacturing process for each product delivered.
9. A factory or system to be considered Industry 4.0 should include interoperability, information transparency, technical assistance (ability of the systems to support/assists humans), and decentralized decision-making.
AUTOMOBILES & AUTOMATION
1. In the automobile industry, small-batch capabilities will allow for more versatility in welding, seam sealing, and assembly using cooperative, autonomous robots. As a result, companies will be able to produce multiple car models with different body styles and designs using one flexible production line. Product and plant engineering can be expanded to multiple product life cycles and models.
2. The car-making process will be overseen by automatic job-control systems. These will use data integration to modify the manufacturing process automatically, making multiple order systems obsolete. Car component suppliers will automatically adjust their processes on the basis of new orders from the automaker, maximizing just-in-time logistics. This change will reduce the costs of logistics and operations.
3. During the lifetime of the car, its virtual model, created in the engineering phase and integrating all relevant data, will constantly be updated with performance data and data from exchanged parts. Producers can improve their after-sales service, offer a range of new services, and generate insights that can be used to optimize the design of future cars.
THOUGHTS
1. Humans will always have a place in manufacturing activities such as conceptualize, designing the product and determining production rules and parameters. Virtual manufacturing simulates and compares production options on the basis of instructions, then proposes compliant ‘optimal’ production paths requires human input.
2. In the era of Integrated Industry, individual workpieces will determine themselves what functions they need production installations to provide.
3. This represents a shift from rigid, centralized factory control systems to decentralized intelligence. Tasks that are currently still performed by a central master computer will be taken over by components and carry out their own configuration with minimal effort and independently meet the varying requirements of production orders.
4. Not to confuse tools and goals, industry 4.0 will move us in the direction of flexibility, variety and mass production of individual products. To meet these challenges, a self-regulating process is only one solution among many. The growing complexity of processes will actually increase the significance of supply chain management.
5. Customers are now expecting extremely short turnaround times. Before something can be produced, in most cases, the material already has to be on hand, even for fully automated processes, therefore making the what and when of business decisions on the basis transparent planning models will continue to be in demand.
6. Industry 4.0 requires complex mechatronic systems with enormous functionality and a lot of understanding of soft factors and individual processes and should enable needs-based, flexible and efficient manufacturing of individual products.
(Source: boschrexroth, automationworld, bcgperspectives)
