How IoT works for Manufacturing? Here’s an Example

IoT Manufacturing – The internet of things has the potential to increase global productivity up to 25 percent by 2025. Which could translate to an economic value of 11 trillion dollars.

Industries like manufacturing are embracing the potential of the Internet of Things.

Many production facilities are already using processes and supervisory control systems with connectivity.

The Internet of Things for manufacturing is a family of solutions that combines the capabilities of analytics, cognitive computing, and the Watson Internet of Things platform to drive operational efficiency across the factory value chain. This solution benefits the manufacturing industry in three main ways

1. It helps plants get 100% efficiency out of their equipment by identifying and solving issues before they cause delays.
2. It makes processes and operations cognitive so plants can produce maximum quality and yield from raw materials and manufactured components.
3. It helps plant managers better manage resources improve worker expertise and provide a safe working environment.

Advances in these three areas define a new wave of connected manufacturing one that revolves around things process and people.

Let’s take a look at how this works for Simon the plant manager for an aircraft manufacturer. Simon oversees the production of key components for large commercial aircraft and his top priorities are meeting production deadlines and producing airplane parts safely and efficiently. One of his biggest clients needs to move up their delivery date by three months. Simon and his team use the Internet of Things for manufacturing, which will help them deliver earlier than originally planned.

An equipment analytic solution identifies problems with equipment health and performance before they happen and prescribes maintenance procedures, so Simon’s team can avoid equipment failure and downtime, getting maximum effectiveness out of their equipment. To ensure the components are meeting quality standards along the production line, Simon uses a quality analytics tool to identify variability in the manufacturing process in real time.

This allows equipment operators to make adjustments to process parameters based on plant conditions that could affect the quality of production, by monitoring quality in real time Simon’s team can avoid producing faulty components ultimately saving time and money.

Another priority Simon has to account for under a rush schedule is the safety of his plant workers. the cognitive IOT platform includes worker safety technology that monitors things like exposure to extreme heat or toxic gas, open flames, and operating dangerous machinery.

The plant workers wear sensors in their helmets and wristbands that provide real-time alerts on working conditions, activating preventive measures if physical well-being is compromised or safety procedures have not been applied. Because the platform allows Simon to track all of this Internet of Things data in real-time he can be confident that the production equipment, tools, and employees will be able to safely take on an accelerated schedule and make plans to move forward.

Once the completed aircraft from Simon’s plan is put to use, those manufactured parts continue to generate data over time. Data that designers and engineers can use to make improvements and updates to each part in the future.

Additional sensors also make it possible for Simon’s plan to offer cognitive solutions to the airline to help with ongoing predictive maintenance of each manufactured part.

Using the power of the Internet of Things paired with cognitive computing and analytics companies across all industries will improve the way they design and manufacture connected products. Products that will change the way we work and live.

If you are looking to implement IoT technology in the manufacturing sector, we can help you in building industrial IoT software solutions.