SMART PRODUCTS, SMART MAKERS

INDUSTRY 4.0 OR THE SMART FACTORY IS MAKING UNIMAGINABLE THINGS POSSIBLE. A LOOK AT SOME OF THE SOLUTIONS AVAILABLE

MOLLY R

INDUSTRY 4.0 IS BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN process, machines and people using Big Data and analytics. It helps manufacturers to do more with less. In this digital era, there has been an overwhelming supply of emerging technologies, digital channels, etc. But its significance across the industry value chain is becoming more imperative now to raise the bar for adoption.

Companies help by reducing the capital cost and helping enterprises with 3D modelling system giving total view of factory to see beforehand concerns of plant manager like safety, operations and maintenance aspect of the plant. Meenu Singhal, VP, industry business, Schneider Electric India, says, “Our smart factories, designated as light-houses, deploy a broad range of technologies from the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As part of the Lighthouse Factory WEF, we make manufacturing smarter with our Ecostruxure Advisors and AVEVA software – under the IoT-enabled architecture of EcoStruxure and the role it plays in enabling a better customer experience and service. We were able to create a 'template' for other companies to imitate in our Smart Factory software suite.”

Along with the development and production of world-class factory automation products, Mitsubishi Electric also offers the e-F@ctory (Industry 4.0) concept. Sunil Mehta, GM, e-F@ctory (IIoT) promotions, factory automation & industrial division, Mitsubishi Electric India; chairman, CLPA India, says, “Smart factories are created by e-F@ctory utilising cutting-edge control like iQ-R controller platform, and high-speed networking technologies like CC-Link IE and CC-Link IE TSN (Time Sensitive Network) to visualise information. It helps to improve productivity, while reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The e-F@ctory Alliance addresses the need for smart manufacturing for industries like automotive, pharmaceutical, food & beverage, among many others. In addition to this, we are currently in the process of introducing “Edgecross” - an open edge computing domain software platform based on our MELIPC (Industrial PC). Edgecross enables collaboration between FA and IT that contributes to the improvement of production sites, with various solutions that utilize production site data.”