Exploring the IoT Capabilities in Manufacturing Industry

IoT empowered ecosystems have a great influence in driving the businesses in a more intelligent manner with the ideal use of assets and supported business expansion goals.

 

In case of manufacturing industry, the evolving and expanding needs to empower the production, the advent of advanced data analytics techniques, the call for effectiveness in accomplishing and managing tasks has influenced the infiltration of the Internet of Things [IoT] to a greater extent.

 

Let’s explore the IoT capabilities and its benefits in the Manufacturing Industry.

The manufacturing organization[s] are expected to deliver a better product, quality, and services. In order to have an end-to-end transparency and service-oriented strategy, an integrated IoT approach delivers the necessary insights for the manufacturers.

It helps them to derive any form of value via the IoT-enabled devices, sensors and other ‘things.’ It helps to monitor the production flow, manage the equipment[s] at remote, optimize machinery, analyze and utilize the various data acquired.

They are able to deploy the IoT technology in manufacturing plant, warehouses, supply chain extensions, global operations, and, customer sentiments.

Evidently, the IoT in manufacturing is expected to exceed more than US$ 20.59 Billion by 2022 at a CAGR of 27.2%.

And, it delivers the ideal solution for the manufacturers across the varied industrial segments like food and beverage, electronics, chemicals etc.

The food and beverage industry has witnessed a consistency in the quality of the product and meet the operational challenges.

Before exploring how IoT is creating the much-needed transformation in the manufacturing sector, let’s understand the major driving factors for introducing IoT in manufacturing.

Driving Factors of IoT in Manufacturing:

A few of them are mentioned below.

• Demand-driven supply chain system
• Agility in production and operational efficiency
• Centralized monitoring of manufacturing infrastructure
• Predictive maintenance of the system
• Attain compliance with the evolving regulations
• Advanced data processing and analytics

Evidently, this has made the manufacturers to bring their products into the realm of IoT. Let’s explore how the IoT capabilities could be made advantageous for the manufacturers.

IoT Capabilities in Manufacturing:

Connected Operations:

The machinery connected with IoT is capable of transmitting the operational data to the equipment manufacturers and field engineers facilitating remote management, process optimization, and automation.  

Create Maintenance Alerts:

The IoT sensors monitor the machines and alerts if there occurs any deviation in the prescribed parameters-temperature, vibration range, and, etc. This facilitates the manufacturers to eliminate the downtime, enhance operational efficiencies and thus reduce cost and time.

Management of Inventory:

IoT applications deliver cross-channel visibility, inventories tracking, and thus provide the managers with the realistic estimates of the availability and arrival time of the materials. This facilitates to optimize the supply chain and reduces the shared costs.   

Safety and Security:

IoT, when coupled with big data analysis, enhances the safety and security of the workers. Monitoring of the illness rates, injuries, near-misses, and other incidents help to convey the lagging factors and helps to rectify it. It ensures for addressing health, safety, and environment issues.

Quality Control:

IoT collects the data related to material composition, work environment, syndicated data from the third-party, transportation impact, and, importantly the customers’ sentiment. These inputs are analyzed to derive optimal measures with reference to prevailing or predictable quality issues.

Logistics Optimization:

As the plants are connected to the suppliers, it is able to trace the material flow, interdependencies, and manufacturing cycles. Eventually, the manufacturers are able to feed the data into ERP, PLM, analyze and reduce/increase the inventory and related capital investments.

Further Reading: Connecting Your ERP With IoT

Stability:

As the factory functions get automated, the integrity of production is maintained leading to timely and reliable data. Further, it simplifies the process with access to real-time data and thus minimizes the human interference.

Henceforth, with these IoT capabilities, the businesses are able to witness the following benefits.

Benefits of IoT Adoption in Manufacturing:

• View the Assets status anytime, anywhere and at a faster rate.
• Optimize the uptime of the machinery by their manufacturers.
• Understand, analyze, predict, and manage the process.
• Improve the quality of the equipment and process due to diagnostic capabilities.
• Apply remote services and cut down operational costs.
• Reduce the site downtime through multi-site monitoring.
• Complete tracking of manufacturing and software configuration management.
• Proactive measures owing to predictive quality maintenance.

Closing Thoughts:

The manufacturers are able to proactively monitor their application and services, resolve the issues, ensure the performance, avoid the unwanted costs, maintain quality, and increase efficiency.

Manufacturers are bound to witness and appreciate the connectivity and maximize the opportunities that an IoT can offer for their services.