Manufacturing industries are dependent on their machinery for their productivity and efficiency. Unplanned downtime costs industrial manufacturers an estimated $50 billion annually. Moreover, the maintenance of industrial machinery requires hours of manual labor and spares.
Even after costly and tedious manual inspections of the production line machinery at regular intervals, there is a constant threat of unexpected breakdowns and halts. There was no automated way to check on the status and conditions of the machinery at all times. Thus, managers were unable to prevent sudden machine breakdowns or unwarranted downtime in the production line.
There are systems like SCADA and PLC for manufacturing industries to monitor the condition and performance of their machinery, but they are rendered ineffective due to their several limitations. These systems are also extremely inflexible and are not scalable to keep up with the changing needs of production assemblies. They are also ineffective outside the fence applications and are quite rigid due to their complex wired structures. In addition to that, these systems are reactive in nature and lack machine-to-machine communication. This disconnect among machines restricts machinery operators and supervisors from proactively monitoring and managing the equipment and avoiding downtime in their production lines.
In today’s day and age, industries need scalable and flexible systems that can keep up with the speed of the manufacturing processes. Proactive monitoring and machine-to-machine communications are necessary to predict any impending machine failures and prevent major downtimes. Also, in the event of a machine failure, operators and supervisors need to have a complete picture of things to be able to act quickly. They require a monitoring system that can pinpoint the origin of the fault and also offer root cause analysis on the same to enable the operators to get the system up and running as soon as possible.
To fulfil all these requirements, a modern efficient monitoring system is required.
Enter: IIoT enabled Machine Monitoring
IIoT is the Industry Internet of Things. It is a system of interconnected sensors that share information and help operators monitor their systems. In a manufacturing facility, an IoT system makes use of wireless sensors and monitoring devices to keep track of every machine present on a factory floor.
Sensors connected to each machine on the production line collect essential data pertaining to the machine. All this data is then shared with a centralized platform in real-time. The centralized platform uses machine learning algorithms to create data model and converts it into useful information. Machine operators and supervisors can use this information to make quick and smart decisions to boost the efficiency and quality of their production lines.
Advantages of IIoT enabled Machine Monitoring
Reduced Wastage
Machines tend to consume more resources when they are not running in optimum conditions. Due to this, there is a wastage of raw materials and well as energy resources. The final product quality might also get affected. Due to this, a lot of products have to be discarded during quality checks. Even the quality checks consume more time due to the uncertainty of the quality.
With an IoT-enabled monitoring system in place, operators are alerted immediately even when there is the slightest drop in the machine conditions. The supervisors and the operators can take the necessary actions and restore the machines to their optimum conditions. Thus, a lot of wastage of resources caused due to machine wear and tear can be avoided.
Optimum Efficiency
There are multiple factors contributing to the efficiency of the production line. When there is an IoT-enabled machine monitoring system in place, supervisors and operators save a lot of time in manually monitoring the machine conditions and isolating faulty machines. They can use their time for more productive work.
Also, based on the insights provided by the monitoring systems, machine operators can identify inadequacies and inefficiencies that restrict machines from operating at the highest level of efficiency. They can also monitor the amount of energy consumed by the machines and take measures to reduce excess power consumption. This helps them to proactively manage power utilization, and that in turn, increases the efficiency of their production line.
Reduced Downtime
With real-time monitoring and detailed insights of every machine on the factory floor, operators and supervisors are able to anticipate and predict faults and failures on the production line and prevent them from happening by taking proactive measures. Regular machine maintenance insights provided by the monitoring systems also help teams plan ahead. These valuable insights help avoid all the unexpected downtimes.
Machine Monitoring System – The first step towards IIoT Digital Transformation
With IoT and wireless devices leading the next digital transformation across all industries, it is obvious that IoT will soon take the manufacturing industry by storm. There are many use cases and applications of IoT that can transform all production lines across the manufacturing industry. The IoT machine monitoring system will pave the way for many more IoT-powered transformations, turning them all into Smart Factories.
Nivid’s N-Smart solution for industries provides all-round process visibility and control to continuously improve manufacturing process. N-Smart is a single sourced, fully managed IoT-as-a-Service platform that offers turnkey IoT solutions including the full lifecycle services in a subscription-based model. It is an any-to-any solution that combines hardware, connectivity, platform, and services in a single pane of view dashboard to simplify and accelerate industrial use cases. For more information, please visit nsmart.io