Smart Factories and the Challenges of the Proximity Network
point for the remainder of this discussion due to their prominence and similarities in implementation. Asset tracking for inventory management was the third-most prominent use case. However, it will not be considered at this time due to the additional integration challenges it poses such as positioning and dynamic edge device association.
IIoT in the Smart Factory integrates the physical sensors and actuators( or their Programmable Logic Controller( PLC) or Human Machine Interface( HMI)) of Operational Technology( OT) with the enterprise applications of Information Technology( IT). The use cases in the Smart Factory form the basis of these integrations. In order to fully explore these two use cases, we will examine both in the context of six integration challenges:
1. powering the edge device 2. networking the edge device 3. integrating sensors and actuators 4. integrating with IT 5. data bandwidth and 6. data reliability
Before we jump into the six major integration challenges, let’ s take a moment to review the two use cases of Process Improvement and Predictive Maintenance.
2.1 Process Improvement
Most factories have well established and highly efficient processes already in place. However, plant managers still focus on ways to improve their process efficiencies. In some cases, they operate in a commodity market where the business operates on a few cents of margin per unit. In other cases, the plant manager has tight deadlines or safety concerns driving the need for greater visibility into problems earlier in the process. Most of the possibilities to gain additional efficiency occur at the integration points between different automated processes. Quality and production flow need to be first understood and then ultimately controlled at these integration points.
One plant we visited processes about 50,000 lbs of chicken per day. This particular plant takes raw chicken breasts and produces a variety of finished products such as breaded chicken, cooked chicken, and sausage – all of a variety of shapes and sizes. The plant manager highlighted portion control as their key issue. Early in the process, a machine cuts the raw chicken breast. Breading and cooking processes operate on the cut chicken further down the plant line. If the chicken is not the right size and shape coming off of the cut line, then the rest of the process is flawed and they produce an unsatisfactory product. Today, problems in portioning associated with manual data recording are not discovered for 24 hours. It is much too late to address the problem and they have to start over, losing valuable time as well the cost of materials and labor. The plant managers look to solve the problem by automatically measuring weight and size as each piece
- 64- January 2017