It was 2011 when the concept of Industry 4.0 was first introduced to the manufacturing sector. In the years since, the implementation of digitally intelligent production systems has significantly advanced. But experts say the manufacturing industry hasn’t achieved the full optimization that can be gained from the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
My colleague Nitin Dahad, editor-in-chief of Embedded, recently attended the Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) Industry 4.0 summit in Portugal. He had an opportunity to talk with several experts in the field.
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When Industry 4.0 became popularized there was a lot of hype around various enabling technologies such as IoT and blockchain. Early pilot projects, said Francisco Almada Lobo, CEO of Critical Manufacturing, didn’t produce the desired results and manufacturers have since revisited the concept to determine what technologies and systems were right for their businesses.
MES provide a platform that supports the processes and technologies that are most beneficial to a specific manufacturer.
The key to all of this is the digitalization of these processes. The collection and analysis of data is essential to adding the “smart” to smart manufacturing and similar initiatives. Micron Technology, for example, has deployed more than 400,000 sensors across 30 factories that provide information that is analyzed and used for actionable events. Lobo emphasizes the need for historic data that helps contextualize real-time data.
Jeff Peabody, managing director, North America, for Critical Manufacturing, said the desire for digital transformation is pushing MES forward in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Peabody notes that merger and acquisition activity in the semiconductor industry has left many companies with a bunch of non-compatible manufacturing solutions. MES can be used to unite and standardize all these disparate systems, he said.
The advantages of Industry 4.0 within a factory have been well documented. Lam Research is using AI and ML in “intelligent equipment” that is self-aware, self-maintained and self adaptive, a Lam executive told Dahad. This expands the availability of these machines; yields better results; and enables faster maintenance. Still, the electronics industry is an ecosystem that includes suppliers and services as well as manufacturers and end-customers. There’s less information available about the benefits reaped throughout the supply chain. And every company’s journey is different.
Embedded, EETimes and EPSNews recently hosted an Industry 4.0 virtual panel, Achieving Collaboration via Digitization, discussing how partners are collaborating in the expansion of Industry 4.0. Our experts come from the academic, manufacturing and solutions sectors and will share their experiences with their partners; how data is shared, maintained, analyzed and protected; technologies that improve the seamlessness of these communications; and the benefits all partners can reap from a shared vision of the factory of the future. The event is now available on demand. Register here.
The article originally published on EPS News at https://epsnews.com/2023/09/12/experts-weigh-in-on-industry-4-0/.
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