The manufacturing industry is shedding its past image of hard, bulky manual labor and evolving to become more digital and nimble with the widespread implementation of industrial energy analytics systems and software. This change has brought about a new terminology called smart manufacturing, which California Manufacturing Technology Consulting (CMTC) defines as “the use of real-time data and technology when, where and in the forms that are needed by people and machines.”
Industrial Energy Analytics
Smart manufacturing builds on the advances in computers that are often already incorporated into production and adds a layer of connectivity and data, similar to how smartphones added easy internet access and computing capabilities to mobile phones.
These changes have significantly increased manufacturer’s analytics capabilities, as the real-time data gives them the ability to unlock new insights.
Improving Operations
Adding real-time data capabilities, such as through sensors on machines, enables manufacturers to better understand how these tools are operating. By analyzing this data, companies can recognize inefficiencies like too much idle time or potential maintenance problems that they can fix before the machine completely breaks down.
For example, as Intel notes, a vibration sensor on a piece of equipment like a crankshaft could send data to the cloud for analysis by machine learning algorithms, which could be trained to recognize what is problematic. Since vibration can provide the most advance warning of reliability issues — up to nine months before failure occurs, according to Machine Monitoring Systems — this use of analytics enables manufactures to get ahead of potential operational problems.
Improving Customer Experience
Smart manufacturers are already using analytics to improve operations, but perhaps a larger untapped areas lies in how industrial analytics can improve customer experience.
A PwC survey of industrial and manufacturing companies found that 72% expect the use of data analytics to “substantially improve customer relationships and customer intelligence along the product life cycle.”
Manufacturers can use analytics to better understand what customers want, which ultimately leads to more revenue. For example, they can use real-time data to personalize products, which tends to generate much higher margins than mass-manufactured goods, notes PwC. New technologies such as 3D printing can make this possible, and the combination of customer and operational analytics can position manufacturers to be able to make customization efficient.
Smart manufacturing offers exciting opportunities to improve the industry, and those that make use of analytics can get an extra step ahead.
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