How to integrate IoT and automation in complex operational landscapes

Organizations, especially the ones related with industry and manufacturing, are in the middle of a digital revolution most commonly called as "Industry 4.0".

Sep 1, 2017 12:44:39 PM

Luis Santos

Posted By Luis Santos

Organizations, especially the ones related with industry and manufacturing, are in the middle of a digital revolution most commonly called as "Industry 4.0".

 

Read on to discover how can you take advantage of the underlying technologies without being trapped in a money sucking, underperforming, sexy project.

Process digitization is currently set as one of the highest priority tasks on every organization and it's seen, we agree with this vision, as a main key to achieve operational excellence by building up sustainable and profitable processes.

 

The idea seems simple but it consists on a huge challenge, even bigger when it requires to collect and analyze TONS of data produced by all systems living on the company ecosystem (including partner external systems!), from sensors to robots and PLCs, from ERPs to manual operations supported by wireless equipment’s on the field. Some of those equipment’s are not even designed for this kind of tasks.

 

Collecting data and KPIs, making it visible and useful in real-time and provide tools to help on process decision and dynamic process adjustment can be easily turned into a nightmare and it's critical for company operational survival.

 

The main goal is to enable real-time rich data to provide control and take the best decisions on the spot, which are some of the ideas exposed by lean manufacturing and Six Sigma concepts to achieve operational distinction. Stating this, companies are pushing to apply these concepts over its supply chain, from inbound to outbound flows, and internally over its manufacturing and production processes.

 

Is it a really nice challenge? Yes, it is, even more spicy when it's also required to be flexible enough to easily integrate with any kind of equipment and build dynamic rules to quickly adjust the entire ecosystem to business and operational process changes while keeping development and process change costs as low as possible.

 

Over the years we acquired exceptional experience on this field while working with our extremely demanding partners and customers within different business areas. The “Internet of Things” (IoT) pushed everyone to build a smart connected world, placing our solution as the orchestrator of the entire organization ecosystem.

 

 

We were able to build and come up with a complete solution based on our principles, keeping it always standard, generic, resilient and responsive. It allows company-wide ecosystem coverage and processes configuration without requiring extra developments or system stops, using:

 

  • Simple system landscape and device configuration using user-friendly interfaces, without requiring a master guru technician. It allows connectivity, health and status monitoring of any kind of device;

 

  • Flexible business and operational process design configuration through intuitive dashboards. You decide your process stages and what kind of data is relevant on each one;

 

  • Operational process changes can be controlled through configurable rules, providing flexibility to quickly adjust your business to new requirements;

 

  • Configurable real-time dashboards with relevant process information and alerts, along with relationship between different data sources can be used to generate drill-down views so it becomes easier and faster to take decisions on the spot;

 

  • Data analysis and monitoring can anticipate problems and bottlenecks while minimizing business risk or system downtimes. It also enables prediction and data forecast enabling company to overcome with future business changes.

 

 

As usual, this is not a closed subject or project. We are always on track of new technology, concepts and methodology improvements to help building and delivering the most suitable solutions for connectivity and interoperability to our partners, so they can be considered as standards for operational excellence. Do you want to become a part of it? 

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