Outcomes, Insights and Best Practices from IIC Testbeds: MQM Testbed
I NTRODUCTION
In order to extend the usefulness of the published Testbeds in the Testbed Program of the
Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), the Testbed Working Group has developed an initiative to
interview the contributors of selected testbeds, to showcase more insights about the testbed,
including the lessons learned through the testbed development process. This initiative enables
the IIC to share more insights and inspire more members to engage in the Testbed Program.
This article highlights the recently completed Manufacturing Quality Management (MQM)
Testbed. The information and insights described in the following article were captured through
an interview conducted by Mr. Joseph Fontaine, Vice President of Testbed Programs at IIC, with
Dr. Mitch Tseng, Distinguished Consultant of Huawei Technologies. Mitch is an active member in
the IIC where he has been serving as co-chairs of both the Innovation Task Group and the Edge
Computing Task Group. In September 2017, Mitch was recognized by his peers and bestowed the
IIC Testbed Award for his leadership and contribution to the MQM Testbed. His nomination cited
the importance of the testbed in “modernizing and increasing the efficiency of China’s
manufacturing facilities necessary to maintain manufacturing performance and to reduce impact
on the environment.”
MQM T ESTBED – F ROM C ONCEPT TO R EALITY
improvements.
The MQM Testbed, has, as the name would
imply, an obvious focus on using “quality” as
the key to manage and improve the existing
(brown-field) manufacturing process. The
core focus of the MQM Tested is on
“manufacturing process.” The objective of
the MQM Testbed is to retrofit old factories,
particularly in China, to ensure, under the
architecture illustrated in the IIC’s Industrial
Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA) 1 ,
along with the addition of new technologies
and Internet of Things (IoT) processes, a
smooth transformation of modernizing can
be performed with tangible benefits in a
production improvement. After a two year
effort, the MQM Testbed has been
developed and successfully deployed in two
productions lines – air-conditioners and
kitchen vents – in one of Haier’s factories in
Qingdao, China, with demonstrable
1
The biggest reward for members working on
this testbed is the sense of fulfilment and
satisfaction throughout the process that an
idea was brought from concept to
implementation; and better yet, the results
exceeded
the
client’s
expectation.
Furthermore, by adding IoT elements to the
manufacturing process and demonstrating
to the client (a traditionalist OT partner), the
testbed team showed that the IoT process
with IT elements worked well in helping
Haier improve their manufacturing process.
The visible improvement to its old
production line immediately won the trust of
Haier’s management. The testbed team did
not take the approach of attempting to
refine a process (although that may come in
the future). The primary focus was to reduce
the
RMA
(returned
merchandise
Industrial Internet Reference Architecture, Industrial Internet Consortium 2017, www.iiconsortium.org/IIRA
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March 2018