You could be forgiven for thinking smart manufacturing is the answer to all your production problems in electronics manufacturing, and there is no doubt that it can add value, but is your business ready to make the most of it?
Here we look at what it is, the pros and cons, and how Marq-One can help.
What is Smart Manufacturing?
Smart Manufacturing (SM) put simply is utilising machinery connected to the internet to monitor the production process.
This involves placing sensors into manufacturing machines to collect data in real time of their performance. This data is then stored to the Cloud by The Internet of Things (IoT)*, and is then analysed to see how the process is working and what improvements can be made.
By being able to analyse the performance of multiple machines across an entire production environment, the idea is that it is possible to pinpoint any potential failures within the machines themselves and increase the level of efficiency in which they are working.
Smart Manufacturing can improve performance without human intervention through advanced industrial robots. These robots can communicate with manufacturing systems directly, have the ability to problem solve and use Artificial Intelligence to make independent decisions, while being able to be reconfigured.
*The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things is the concept that you can connect any device with an on/off switch to the Internet and the other devices also connected to it, essentially forming an enormous, connected network of things and people.
Examples of things that use this type of technology in everyday life include fitness devices that can record your number of daily steps and measure your heart rate and blood pressure, drones used to make deliveries and autonomous self-driving cars. All the things connected can collect and share relevant data, allowing this data to be analysed for improvement.
What are the Pros and Cons of Smart Manufacturing?
Pros:
- Smart Manufacturing can enhance productivity and efficiency. It can enable a greater level of flexibility, which in turn streamlines the daily operations of the business and improves ROI.
- While costly initially, it can help to save money in the long term, particularly in the reduction of production downtime. For example, a sensor can be used to detect issues within machine and alert an operator, and the use of AI Technology can highlight problems even before they happen, allowing the operators to take preventative measures to avoid any downtime in the future.
- Planning accuracy is more efficient.
- There is a reduction in material usage and labour, and a reduction in energy use.
- Increased transparency within the production process means that changes can be implemented easily and more efficiently, meaning that more sales can be realised.
- Increased flexibility can lead to mass customisation.
Cons:
- Initially, Smart Manufacturing is extremely expensive to implement, although it offers savings in the long-term. This level of cost is perhaps only available to larger manufacturing companies.
- There are multiple health and safety concerns for the human workforce when using advanced robotics. Generally, robotics is separated, although recent technological advances have allowed robots to be able to work collaboratively with humans.
- Automation and digitisation can lead to previously existing positions no longer being necessary or needed within the company.
- The technology itself is extremely complicated. Defining the big picture of the use of Smart Manufacturing is a monumental task and it may be easy to overlook areas in which it is needed.
- However sophisticated the sensors and data collection, it still requires someone to not only understand the data but be able to use what the data is telling them and perform an action in response. Smart Manufacturing Technologies can be extremely expensive, so it is important that you have effective people with the knowledge and understanding of the data to use the information effectively.
Historically in electronics manufacturing, what has happened is data is usually collected at different points and then somebody takes it away to analyse. They will come back then after looking at the data and offer insights or solutions which are helpful but can take time.
The level of insight offered by smart manufacturing now is incredibly detailed it can give you insight into exactly what’s going on within a manufacturing environment. The downside is that this is all very well, but data is only helpful if you have someone who can analyse it, actually understands the analysis and ultimately can direct people to perform an action on the back of it.
This requires a level of competency – you can have the best data gathering in the world, you can have the deepest analysis in the world, you can have the sharpest of insights but unless you’re able to respond and act in the right way, they are useless.
Basic problem-solving skills are first and foremost the most important thing to focus on, knowing whether your team are competent, knowing if they understand where problems arise and why.
Once you have this nailed you can absolutely invest in smart manufacturing if you wish, but don’t skip this step!
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