Plastics & Rubber World - September/October 2019 - 13

industry 4.0

smartphone, skipping industry altogether.
Now a good proportion of that technology, much of it based on sensors developed for smart phone applications, is now
working its way backwards.
"Those sensors allow us to do things
differently, more efficiently than we did
before. And they're coming into play
across all industries," he adds.

Industry 4.0 versus the Internet
of thIngs

In speaking about potential for manufacturing efficiencies, 'Industry 4.0' and
the 'Internet of Things' (IoT), are widely
presented as interchangeable phrases.
But they are not like-for-like, as Partain
explains.
"Categorically speaking, IoT refers to
what we can achieve using smartphones,"
he says. "When you look at a smart device,
it's essentially a suite of sensors with software on top that supports an easily-accessible format. That can drive a series of applications which control other peripherals,
including household hardware.
Industry 4.0 is just the adaptation of
that IoT technology which has been applied across industry. But the way those
technologies are used in industry are very
different from the way they are used in
the home."
By way of explanation, he puts forward another example where a chemicals manufacturer used sensors (adapted for industrial applications) to better
understand their hardware and implement an improved maintenance programme.
"We were working with a pumping
specialist, Flowserve Corporation. Texmark, the chemicals company, had installed the pumps 20 years earlier and
had set up a maintenance service schedule. Maintenance is done in one of two
ways. The machine has a catastrophic
breakdown, where it clearly needs maintenance, or there is a set maintenance
schedule."
As Partain continues, he points out
the problem with each of those scenarios. While the scheduled service minimises extended downtime, it begs the

The data and control flow between things, the edge and the cloud
question of whether that service is being
performed too often, just to avoid the
downtime related to a major breakdown.
So the service schedule wins out, but that
still means a person will carry out the
same routine at a set point in time which
costs 'x' production hours. In either case,
the hardware is out of action and not
making money.
"To solve the issue, we installed sensors to carry out condition monitoring.
Sensors are so small now that they can
be installed non-invasively. Once that's
done, you can choose to simply look at
what's going on. Or, you can take that to
the next level and use historic data to
perform predictive maintenance.
"The extension of that is preventative
maintenance. This is where the system,
using historic data, suggests that the
controller adjust performance to reduce
the need for machine maintenance."

spend for the solutIons
you need

The Texmark case study is a further example where a low-cost solution was put
in place to minimise downtime and keep
hardware up and running.
"Does it always have to be a big spend?
No," says Tripp Partain. "You can take what
are very simple technologies to solve a
problem get an instant return.".
At the other end of the scale, there
are solutions driven by vision technology. "We've just installed cameras on our
own [HPE] server production line (photo at top of article). They spin around
the finished units and check the ordered components are there and that
they're installed correctly. Our ROI has

The HPE Edgeline EL300 Converged
Edge System provides physical OT-IT
convergence

been very good on that project," says
Partain.
The checks had been done manually,
but he further points out that the automated inspection took 93 seconds out
of the verification process. "We assemble
about 45,000 servers per month. Factor
that time savings out across the year and
it's a considerable number. And that's
time you can decide how to use across
your company."
Perhaps more importantly, the customer gets what they ordered, straight
out of the box. As a result of the installation, quality metrics went up by 25%.
Partain closes with a thought for the
future: "What's in evidence is that between two companies, one with and the
other without Industry 4.0 capability, the
customer would be wise to go with the
company with the capability. There's a
good chance they'd be offering a lower
cost and a higher quality."

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