Intelligent manufacturing has become an important trend of global manufacturing industry. With the gradual disappearance of the demographic dividend, factories and enterprises need to find a new mode of production to alleviate the expensive labor costs and respond to the rapidly updated product demand. The emergence of industrial 4.0 model provides a new way of thinking for manufacturing industry. Connecting all stages of the product life cycle through the Internet of Things, from raw material procurement to production to delivery and entry into the customer's home, the whole process can be visually managed.
This is also the scene of the fourth industrial revolution. The Internet of Things has built a bridge for the whole manufacturing process and created a cohesive manufacturing environment. Raw material suppliers know when to deliver, manufacturers know how to ensure product quality, feedback information from each customer enables manufacturers to gain new knowledge of products and markets, Internet of Things solves the problem of information separation between suppliers, manufacturers and customers, and intelligent factories upgrade manufacturing service capabilities to a new level.
In the future, the Internet of Things will bring tremendous value to manufacturing industry, potentially worth tens of trillion dollars. It is estimated that the market will grow at an annual rate of 6% in the next five years and reach nearly $70 billion by 2020. Huge application scenarios include automotive and transportation, mining, electronics, chemical, pharmaceutical, oil and gas industries. So, how will the new manufacturing scenario change and how will factory enterprises meet the trend?
The Change of Manufacturing Supply Chain
The demand of consumer market changes so fast that it is undoubtedly a big problem for the traditional manufacturing industry. Customers'real-time expectations are rising and supply chains are becoming more and more complex. Manpower analysis or backward tools to manage and control the manufacturing process have been difficult to meet the current market demand. Intelligent factories keep up with customers'demands by collecting a large amount of real-time data through intelligent sensors and the Internet of Things, and then based on the analysis of cloud-based high-power servers and creating more flexible production processes.
How should manufacturers cope with the change of intelligent factories?
Intelligent manufacturing mode is totally different from traditional manufacturing. Depending on advanced digital manufacturing technology, factories can produce on demand, purchase raw materials from suppliers around the world, avoid the risk of large inventory, and manage customer feedback through social media to achieve personalized manufacturing, so as to achieve faster, more flexible and more efficient product delivery level.
Thanks to the development of Internet of Things and digital technology, intelligent manufacturing has brought new capabilities to factories. Although upgrading intelligent factories is not necessary, it is very valuable. Using the optimized supply chain can not only reduce the delivery time and cost, but also reduce the number of defective products in the production process based on the mastery of market information.
Consistency of product quality
In the past, when factories received workshop information or from customer surveys to data, products had entered the customer group, that is, damage had been produced, leaving users with a low quality impression. With the help of the Internet of Things technology, the new manufacturing mode allows factories and enterprises to collect and transmit data in real time, which can provide timely insight into the problems and make changes before serious problems arise.
How should manufacturers cope with the change of intelligent factories?
Future products will be equipped with smart sensors, which will ensure the quality level of each product consistency. Whether it is electronic consumer goods, household appliances or industrial equipment, sensors can report abnormal data of products to manufacturers, and then the factory will provide timely after-sales service. Moreover, factories can analyze the shortcomings of products from data, optimize the next product, and ultimately more ensure the quality of products.
This approach avoids customer complaints and damage to the company's brand, while potentially saving the company huge costs. In the past, after major problems of automotive products occurred, a large number of recalls occurred frequently, which not only led to the decline of the company's brand influence, but also bear a heavy financial cost.
The advantage of the Internet of Things connection manufacturing process is that once a problem or defect is found, it can repair itself in time before the error has serious consequences. Especially in today's breakthrough of artificial intelligence, hidden dangers can be quickly analyzed, and the production quality control can be completed at a near real-time speed, which will bring better products and less losses.
Important Value of Predictive Maintenance
The unexpected shutdown and unplanned maintenance of the factory production line will bring huge losses to the enterprise. Every equipment and machine can not be maintained without problems. But the occurrence of shutdown outside the plan not only makes the company suffer from production losses, but also reduces the production efficiency. In today's increasingly expensive cost, such unexpected downtime may take a longer time to check and repair, and to pay a huge amount of money, for small and medium-sized enterprises is even more unbearable.
In the industrial 4.0 model, there is a predictive maintenance method, which can automatically monitor machine wear in real time by placing sensors on production equipment in intelligent factories. The machine learning algorithm can accurately track the replacement time of parts and machines.
How should manufacturers cope with the change of intelligent factories?
Predictive maintenance helps to arrange replacement of equipment components before errors occur, and can arrange reasonable replacement time, such as when the machine is idle, without occupying production time. This not only ensures the efficiency of the production line, but also improves the overall agility of the factory.
How to build an intelligent factory?
wisdom