Smart Manufacturing (SM)

Smart manufacturing (SM) is a technology-driven approach that utilizes Internet-connected

machinery to monitor the production process. The goal of SM is to identify opportunities
for automating operations and use data analytics to improve manufacturing performance.

SM is a specific application of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Deployments involve

embedding sensors in manufacturing machines to collect data on their operational status and
performance. In the past, that information typically was kept in local databases on individual
devices and used only to assess the cause of equipment failures after they occurred.

Now, by analyzing the data streaming off an entire factory's worth of machines, or even across
multiple facilities, manufacturing engineers and data analysts can look for signs that particular
parts may fail, enabling preventive maintenance to avoid unplanned downtime on devices.

Manufacturers can also analyze trends in the data to try to spot steps in their processes where
production slows down or is inefficient in their use of materials. In addition, data scientists and
other analysts can use the data to run simulations of different processes in an effort to identify
the most efficient ways of doing things.

As smart manufacturing becomes more common and more machines become networked through
the Internet of Things, they will be better able to communicate with each other, potentially
supporting greater levels of automation.

For example, SM systems might be able to automatically order more raw materials as the
supplies, allocate other equipment to production jobs as needed to complete orders and prepare
distribution networks once orders are completed.

A lack of standards and interoperability are the biggest challenges holding back greater adoption
of smart manufacturing. Technical standards for sensor data have yet to be broadly adopted,
which inhibits different kinds of machines from sharing data and communicating with each other
effectively.

In the United States, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is investigating
opportunities to develop and promote standards with various industry stakeholders, including
technology companies and manufacturers. The process is ongoing. Other challenges include the
cost of implementing sensors broadly and the complexity of developing predictive models.
History/background
It's been nearly 260 years since the beginning of the original Industrial Revolution, thought to
have started around 1760. In the United States, the latest iteration of this process, the fourth
industrial revolution, has been called "smart manufacturing," while in Europe it's known as
"Industry 4.0."

The first industrial revolution was characterized by steam power and the power loom; the
assembly line was introduced during the second industrial revolution; and automation and data-
enhanced automation came along in the 1970s during the third industrial revolution.

This fourth industrial revolution is characterized by a range of interconnected automated systems

that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds.

Related technologies
In addition to the Internet of Things, there are a number of technologies that will help enable
smart manufacturing, including:

 Artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning – enables automatic decision-making

based on the reams of data that manufacturing companies collect. AI/machine
learning can analyze all this data and make intelligent decisions based on the inputted
information.

 Drones and driverless vehicles – can increase productivity by reducing the number of
workers needed to do rote tasks, such as moving vehicles across a facility.

 Blockchain – blockchain's benefits, including immutability, traceability and

disintermediation, can provide a fast and efficient way to record and store data.

 Edge computing – edge computing helps manufacturers turn massive amounts of

machine-generated data into actionable data to gain insights to improve decision-
making. To accomplish this, it uses resources connected to a network, such as alarms
or temperature sensors, enabling data analytics to happen at the data source.

 Predictive analytics – companies can analyze the use huge amounts of data they
collect from all their data sources to anticipate problems and improve forecasting.

 Digital twins – companies can use digital twins to model their processes, networks
and machines in a virtual environment, then use them to predict problems before they
happen as well as boost efficiency and productivity.
Smart manufacturing technology and how it benefits factories
mart manufacturing technology is gaining rapid market acceptance due to its various benefits,
including increased productivity and reduced cost.
That was the point raised by Smart Plants, which offers a cloud-based smart factory solution. “It
provides real-time insight to different manufacturing sites with detailed information on the past
and current production details and analytics, like predictive maintenance and tool usage. The
solution is integrated with most if not all ERP and third party systems with API,” said Stig
Olsen, Sales Director at Smart Plants.
He made the remarks amid the popularity of the Industrial Internet of Things or IIoT, which
leverages connected devices and the data they generate. According to Smart Plants, benefits of
IIoT are manifold, including cost savings achieved through the following ways:

Lower energy costs

According to the company, the largest savings made by digital disruption in a factory setup
would be energy costs. The biggest advantage of having a visual monitor of the entire
manufacturing process down to the micro-level means that the operator can take quick and
effective actions to make their factory leaner and leaner, Smart Plants said.
Lower inventory holding costs
Once all inventory is part of the connected network, the smart factory application can help the
user visualize, simplify and streamline even the most resource-intensive process, the company
said.
Lower quality costs
Since smart factory works in real time, web app users have a powerful capability to view live
operation details and save manual time costs, and the users can even “rewind” to a certain point
in any connected machine’s performance history, the company said.
Lower downtime losses
According to the company, one hour of downtime can cost from US$100,000 to $1 million
depending on the size of the factory and how critical the bottleneck was. “One of our customers’
results proved that one hour less downtime of a bottleneck machine is equivalent to one hour less
downtime for the whole production. They had implied the use of easy-to-understand dashboards
displaying machines’ status in our solution had helped mitigate their downtime,” Smart Plants
said.
Lower maintenance cost and maximum asset utilization

A major advantage of immediate alerts by the digital system is that bottlenecks are identified
instantly, meaning corrective action can be taken more quickly, and the costly rip-and-replace
can be avoided, the company said.
Reduced Labor Costs
According to the company, digital disruption allows the user to allocate only the required
number of personnel for given amounts of time, and redistribute personnel over different jobs.
This will not only reduce overtime expenses for the user but also help save a huge chunk of extra
labor costs, it said.
Smart Plants’ solution is made up of a gateway connecting various units to its cloud bases-
solution, enhanced with Thales military-grade end-to-end encryption. “The system is flexible and
non-proprietary, communicating with all types of machines, from 100-year-old machines to
modern CNC machines. We can combine human centric interface and machine centric interface
and we interface with third-party systems like ERP, MPS and tool databases,” Olsen said. “We
have contributed to a 7.5 percent production increase in just three months.”
 
According to Olsen, Smart Plants’ solution is suitable for different types of manufacturing
settings. “It’s ideal for machine shops as well as manufacturing facilities with a variety of
machines, new and old, that can benefit from our human-centric and machine-centric way of
collecting data for production optimization,” Olsen said, adding the solution is combined with AI
and deep learning as well.
 
“This is done by comparing production data from machine A with machine B, analyzing key
metrics for production optimization and predicting maintenance, purchase, logistics and more,”
he said.
Advantages of smart manufacturing
Smart manufacturing offers a number of benefits,

1. Improved efficiency,
2. Increased productivity
3. And long-term cost savings. 

In a smart factory, productivity is continuously enhanced. If a machine is slowing down

production, for example, the data will highlight it, and the artificial intelligence systems will
work to resolve the issue. These extremely adaptable systems enable greater flexibility.
In terms of efficiency, one of the main savings comes from the reduction in production
downtime. Modern machines are often equipped with remote sensors and diagnostics to alert
operators to problems as they happen. Predictive AI technology can highlight problems before
they occur and take steps to mitigate the financial costs.

A well-designed smart factory includes automation as well as human-machine collaboration,

features that enable operational efficiency.

Disadvantages of Smart Manufacturing

A big downside to smart manufacturing is the upfront cost of implementation. As such, many
small to midsize companies won't be able to afford the considerable expense of the technology,
particularly if they adopt a short-term philosophy.

However, since savings over the long term will outweigh the startup costs, organizations have
to plan for the future even if they can't implement smart factories immediately.

Another disadvantage is that the technology is very complex, which means that systems that are
poorly designed or not adequate for a particular operation could cut into profits.

Challenges to smart manufacturing

 1| INTEGRATION
“The industrial segment is a strong advocate of the ‘if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it’ idiom.
Machines are maintained and used for many years, often beyond a period whereby parts are
easy to obtain. They remain part of the environment because replacing them would cost
hundreds of thousands of dollars, an expense which smaller industrial companies find it very
hard to justify when the existing machine works perfectly.”
2 | CONNECTIVITY
“Wired connectivity is favoured in industrial, so with IoT pushing wireless connectivity this
can represent a see change in the network infrastructure design. The use of wireless
networking may lead to concerns over security.”
3 | FINANCING
“As with all IoT deployments, the issue of financing is key, with pro-IoT advocates within the
company asking management to fund trials and ultimately full deployments. Convincing
management for funding based on theoretical benefits which are not yet demonstrable in the
actual facility is challenging. Quantifying benefits must always show the correlation of
operational improvements to the bottom line.”
4 | SKILLS
“Having gained management sign-off and funding, the next question is who will make it
happen? At this point the issue of skills arises, specifically whether the company has the skills
in place to design, develop, implement, fine tune and maintain an IoT deployment. The range
of skills required are considerable, from system architects with a detailed knowledge of
manufacturing environments, systems integration specialists who can facilitate the
implementation of the hardware into the manufacturing environment, to data analysts.”
5 | FRAGMENTATION
“The theme of fragmentation is one of the key issues the IoT industry as a whole must strive to
deal with in an effort to simplify selection and planning. Alliances and partnerships continue
to be struck in an effort to broaden IoT capabilities and offer options when engaging with
companies looking to deploy IoT. The challenge in designing and developing IoT solutions for
the industrial market is underlined by the varied list of partnerships being formed across
hardware and software vendors, telecommunications firms, through to engineering and
industrial companies.”
6 | SECURITY
“The security of IoT concerns any device or any part of the IoT process flow where data is
stored, transmitted or analyzed. The mantra ‘protect the production line’ rings loud here. If the
network can be accessed, machines could potentially be hacked; the production process could
be interfered with, and in the worst case scenario, halted. Poorly handled security in an
industrial IoT environment could result in a severe lack of trust between partners, upstream
and downstream.”

How SM differs from traditional manufacturing approaches

Traditional manufacturing methods, developed during the age of mass production, focus on
economy of scale and machine utilization. The thinking was that if a machine was idle, it was
losing money, so companies kept them running continuously.

To achieve customer satisfaction, traditional manufacturing companies keep large inventories on

hand so they can fulfill potential orders. Consequently, these companies have to keep their
machines running with specific setups for as long as they can to reduce the costs of making the
parts.

This is known as batch-and-queue processing – a mass production approach to operations where

the parts are processed and moved to the next process, whether they're needed or not, and wait in
a line (queue).

However, this approach isn't very efficient for several reasons, including:
  A longer machine set-up time means more lost production time, because nothing is
produced while a machine is down.

 The quality of the product suffers because if parts in a batch aren't made correctly, no
one will likely notice the problem until the next operation. This means the work has
to be done again, which is expensive and ties up valuable resources.

Smart manufacturing, on the other hand, is a collaborative, fully-integrated manufacturing

system that responds in real-time to meet changing the conditions and demands in the factory, in
the supply network, and in the needs of the customers.

The goal of smart manufacturing is to optimize the manufacturing process using a technology-
driven approach that utilizes Internet-connected machinery to monitor the production process.
Smart manufacturing enables organizations to identify opportunities for automating operations
and use data analytics to improve manufacturing performance.