Manufacturing – Opportunities for Innovation
Intelligence with historical data, analytical models can be made highly precise and relevant. This
helps accurately and proactively control and detect mean time of failure, providing adequate
time to act in an economical way, reducing downtime and unplanned outages. This assists in
maintaining the uptime and, thus, planned output.
3.3
Automation
Reducing dependencies on human intervention to run day-to-day operations will enhance the
pace and quality of operations. The human capital now available from the reduced dependencies
can be directed to other higher value-creating processes and functions. Intelligence at the edge
will require decisions based upon predefined models. For example, on an assembly line, a scanner
could read the bar code of a finished product and alert the packing station to adjust the length
of the robotic arm. Such automation will reduce costs by saving energy, scrapped material and
human effort. It will also speed up production and increase output. Thus, automation will
positively impact productivity.
The combined effect of intelligence, empowerment and automation will increase productivity. A
linkage of these factors to productivity is shown in the Figure 1.
IIC Journal of Innovation
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