CIOReview | | 19 DECEMBER - JANUARYThere is a lot of focus at the moment on Digital Transformation and how this relates to the manufacturing industry. Terms like Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things are thrown around and seem to pop up in the most unlikely places as if they are being used more for marketing purposes than driving efficient manufacturing. So, what's it all about?Digital Transformation is not about placing robots throughout your production line or using a new piece of software to display your site KPIs. It is simply the fundamental change in thinking to use real-time data as the basis to make all business decisions on, and where suitable, for these decisions to be made in an automated fashion with limited manual input. It frees up your most valuable resource, your people, giving them more time to do the things they do best. Instead of manually entering data or using paper forms to record information, your people use their individual skills to increase production output and reduce waste. They are happier and more motivated in their workplace.Industry 4.0 is the philosophy that enables Digital Transformation to occur. The concept of Industry 4.0 is that all areas of the business that create and use data are interconnected into a single ecosystem. No more silos of information that other systems in your business rely on for decision making left stranded and alone with manual labor being the only means to relay this data from one point to another. Whereas Industry 3.0 implemented automated machines to reduce manual labor in manufacturing products, Industry 4.0 connects these machines together so that they can share information.There are a number of ways to bring this about, some not as efficient as others. The Automation Stack was traditionally used to connect systems. In the Automation Stack, production plant floor equipment like PLCs and HMIs share data with the supervisory SCADA, in turn sharing data with the Manufacturing Execution system and then to the business ERP. The problem here is that there are many connections to support, especially when you start adding further programs like a Quality Sampling system, Preventative Maintenance system, or OEE manager. Each new program needs data from many different sources, so you end up with a spider web of connection paths between all the applications that create or use your data, where everything is trying to communicate with everything else.The more efficient way to connect disparate systems is to have all sources of data send their data to a central authority. Any program that uses data retrieves it from this central authority. Some like to call this a Single Source of Truth or Unified Namespace or the Hub and Spoke model. Whatever you want to call it this central data authority is where you go if you have information that others need, or if you want to retrieve real-time data. It is not a data lake that holds historical data, but if you do happen to have a data historian, it would be archiving data from this central data authority. The choice of infrastructure to implement this comes down to personal preference. OPC UA and MQTT are the most common approaches. with OPC using a server/client method while MQTT uses publish/subscribe. My preference is MQTT due its the lower bandwidth required and the advantages of publish/subscribe over server/client models. This also makes MQTT much better suited for connecting IIoT devices to the central data authority.Creating a defined location to publish and subscribe to real-time data will allow you to implement the principles of Industry 4.0. Allowing all the manufacturing equipment and programs and business systems to share information and to access the real-time value of data enables Digital Transformation. This will lead to increased productivity and efficiency in the manufacturing process with less waste as business decisions will be made using the latest, real-time information. By David Hermann, National Automation Program Manager, Goodman FielderDIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND INDUSTRY 4.0. IN MANUFACTURINGConnecting all areas of the business that create and use data into a single ecosystem is the philosophy of Industry 4.0. Creating this single, interconnected ecosystem will allow all manufacturing equipment, programs and business systems to share information and to access the real-time value of data enabling Digital TransformationCXO INSIGHTS
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