Constantly developing features on the road to digital manufacturing and Industry 4.0
ProManage users can present their countless digital manufacturing operations management experiences that they’ve been using for the past 20 years as examples to the terms that started to be discussed with Industry 4.0.
Manufacturing enterprises and factories can continue their lives only if they gain profits. It is the sole factor that allows these businesses to maintain their existence. Throughout the course of the First Industrial Revolution, factories had the freedom to sell their products via adding their profits on top of their manufacturing costs. However, in time, the ever-increasing competition conditions seized manufacturers’ freedom to determine their sales prices through the aforementioned method. Customers have long been preferring producers that provide the product on time, of high quality and at reasonable prices. As a matter of fact, customers are now expecting producers to surprise them with their products’ innovative features
If a product can’t be sold to the desired price, producers are left with a single option: Increasing their profits and gaining competition advantage through lowering their costs. Efforts to decrease costs and increase quality using scientific techniques in manufacturing, which started in the beginning of 1900s with Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), have constantly been advancing with various application trends. Even as methods kept changing, the main idea remained the same: Decreasing losses in manufacturing.
While the Lean Manufacturing Philosophy perceives all operations that don’t provide any added value to the product as losses, Toyota Production System evaluates stocks as the biggest cost element. The TPM philosophy determined methods to decrease stoppages and delays that stem from machine malfunctions, whereas the Six Sigma philosophy established methods to improve selected losses via handling them with statistical techniques.
Throughout this process, technology rapidly improved and manufacturing became faster, more elastic and of higher quality. Especially the start of the use of computers in manufacturing (Third Industrial Revolution), computer-aided design (CAD), manufacturing (CAM) and management (ERP, MES, CRM and etc.) provided major acceleration to this struggle against losses.
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Even though different countries refer to it with different names and define it differently, Industry 4.0, which is being deemed as the last industrial revolution, aims to reach the target of carrying out the process that starts from customer order to customer delivery rapidly, accurately, in high quality and flexibly through the use of cyber physical systems. It’s an unchanging reality that this process needs to be completed without losses.
During the Third Industrial Revolution, MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) became one of the most powerful operational weapons of manufacturing companies on the road to decreasing losses with its ability to make losses measurable, as well as its ability to prioritize and track them. ProManage Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) system, which was developed by Turkish engineers and is currently being used in over 200 factories in Turkey in addition to coming into prominence in the U.S. and Europe via competing with its rivals in the world, will be the biggest supporter of manufacturing companies throughout the Industry 4.0 process. Now, let’s look at examples to better understand how this process is realized.
ProManage, big data and data analytics
A data mass that conventional solutions can’t process can be obtained from all smart tools, be it classified or non-classified, fast, various and voluminous. This data mass is called Big Data. With the appropriate analysis of Big Data, the aim is to make estimations for the future. The goal of these estimations is to prevent losses that emerge during production. ProManage has been gathering and processing the most valuable data in manufacturing transparently, such as stoppage, malfunction, scraps, cycle time, production amount, process data and test results, instantly, before presenting them to the user as information that will be interpreted. Furthermore, with the hardware it developed, it can carry this process out in all kinds of machines regardless of their technology or age. It can gather necessary data directly from the machine’s PLC without requiring additional hardware in the technological machines that have PLC.
ProManage and the Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT is the things’ ability to make data transaction over internet and through this, their ability to live within the things’ ecosystem via communicating with all other devices that are connected to the internet. The basic aim of this communication is to present instant data to the main center in order for it to be processed. With ProManage system’s hardware, machines connect to the factories’ network, thus to internet and transfers all necessary data to the main center.
ProManage and vertical / horizontal integration
As part of Industry 4.0 and digitization process, plenty of expert software will be used for different purposes within the factory’s body. Perhaps the most important condition of Industry 4.0 is the ability to make horizontal and vertical integrations that allow these software to exchange data with each other in related spots. ProManage is a MES (Manufacturing Execution System) software that’s in the third level according to the ISA (International Society of Automation) model. With this system, integration can be established with all kinds of ERP software in Level 4 and all kinds of PLC software (Over OPC software) in Level 0, 1 and 2 and instant data exchange can be made. Thus, the information flow between expert software can be ensured without interruption and any need for human intervention.
ProManage and augmented reality (AR)
Augmented reality is the lively, direct or indirect physical appearance of the real life environment and its contents generated via enrichment with computer-produced sound, vision, graphics and GPS data. It’s reflection in the manufacturing field is the visualization of numerical values (production amount, OEE, losses and etc.) regarding manufacturing. ProManage has already been demonstrating these values on hall or machine based screens. Now, works have been ongoing to demonstrate these data in an integrated manner with smart phones, tablets and Google glasses. The person in charge in the manufacturing area will be able to see a machine’s production values on his/her smart phone’s screen through looking at the machine from the phone’s camera.
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ProManage, cloud computing and mobile devices
Cloud informatics is the general name given to the internet based informatics services that can be used for computers and other devices any time and that provides computer sources that are shared among the users. What lies underneath it is the prevention of both local server investment and maintenance costs via holding data in the server in the cloud and the provision of access to information over internet regardless of location. Especially, accessing information over mobile devices that are connected to the internet will speed manufacturing responsibles’ activities up and ensure prevention of production losses from taking place before they occur. ProManage has been addressing this need for years with its mobile applications and email notification service. Moreover, its web-based application and Cloud Server support will increase its utilization efficiency in mobile devices and create a way to make industries as a smart factories.
ProManage, machine to machine communication (M2M), autonomous systems and machine learning
M2M signifies the communication of machines and their transfer of necessary data to each other. Machine learning is the ability of machines to make estimations regarding the upcoming situation via generating results from past situations. Autonomous systems can be summarized as the ability of machines to take their own actions in accordance with the estimated situations. These three terms are linked to and supportive of each other. ProManage is at the heart of this process as a system that all manufacturing data is gathered and analyzed. In plenty of cases that an identified abnormal situation takes place, the system provides the opportunity to visualize the problem by the machine through creating a signal in the machine area or directing the machine automatically. With the Machine Learning subject that is being worked on, the system will estimate the problems before they take place and will determine the necessary settings/changes that need to be adopted for the problem to be prevented, before guiding the operator/machine in that direction.
It’s possible to further extend this list. ProManage users can present their countless digital manufacturing operations management experiences that they’ve been using for the past 20 years as examples to the terms that started to be discussed with Industry 4.0. ProManage will continue to be the most basic and beneficial tool of its users with its ever-developing features on the road to Digital Manufacturing and Industry 4.0.