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In this blog, you’ll discover why digital data exchange is essential and is at the centre of Smart Industry.
Firstly, let’s take a look at what Smart Industry – or Industry 4.0 – is. Smart Industry has been described as the digitalisation and connection of devices, production means and organisations.
New business models, new production methods and completely new sectors are emerging because of this connection.
Why Smart Industry?
Is Smart Industry important for the British machine manufacturing industry? Of course! British machine manufacturers are well-known worldwide for high-quality products. There’s no time to loose! Technology is advancing too quickly. We have to get into gear because customer requirements are constantly changing.
Reacting to Changing Customer Requirements
Just as in the consumer world, customers are demanding bespoke products that cost the same as standard products – because of international transport and competition.
In my role as Technical Business Manager at EPLAN UK, I often speak with machine manufacturing managers and directors, production companies, system integrators and panel builders. All of their companies are encountering changing customer requirements.
We have to react quickly to this and keep Smart Automation, Smart Engineering, Smart Manufacturing and Smart Customisation at the centre.
Make Production Flexible
Do you want to create bespoke products for the same price as standard products? Then you have to design, produce and maintain your products in a different way. Just as in the car industry, the future of the B2B market is online shopping: in just a few mouse clicks, customers will be able to personalise their own model and purchase it online.
This demands a production line, which automatically processes bespoke requirements in a self-learning system. The factory of the future needs to be set up in such a way that production processes themselves can react to individual customer orders. Machines and robots need to communicate with each other, identify errors themselves and improve the production process.
Make Smart Industry Tangible
That’s a nice thought, you might say. However, how do you make Smart Industry tangible? The best way is to start by implementing an extensive collaboration within the chain. You will also have to change your own work process.
You can create intelligent modules by modularising and standardising. This allows a customer-specific product to be configured at the same price as a mass-produced item. To do this, you need a multidisciplinary design method that covers all aspects of a product and makes it configurable.
In practice, many companies differentiate their design process, so that a limited part is designed by engineering-to-order and the largest part by configure-to-order.
Eliminate Errors as Early as Possible
Smart Industry goes even further. Mechatronic engineering, virtual prototyping, simulation and testing are all indispensable. By fully simulating new production processes and testing them on virtual platforms, errors can be detected earlier in the process. In addition, engineering can digitally transfer the data to the work floor. This also prevents errors and keeps the costs down.
Engineering should be integrated into the entire business process so that sales know exactly what can be sold and changes, for example from the maintenance phase, can be directly and automatically fed back to engineering.
Smart Industry can only happen with Data
To conclude, I want to highlight the importance of having rich product data. We must ensure that all product and component data is available and can be used in all stages of the production process to create a digital workflow. This is important because digital data exchange is at the centre of Smart Industry.
Do you have questions about Smart Industry and how EPLAN can help you to implement it? Don’t worry! We’re here to answer your questions. Register for the ‘Smart Industry’ webinar on 22nd March 2019, where we will answer all your questions!
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