Guide to IoT in Manufacturing – Growth, Benefits, Use Cases [Infographic]

Globalization and growing customer demands have encouraged manufacturers to try new initiatives to stay ahead. By uncovering/investing in new alternatives like digital transformation services, solutions, manufacturing companies can redefine the way they operate and serve customers. And, this creates an amazing opportunity for every manufacturer and IoT app development company.

The manufacturing industry has to overcome these 5 challenges to serve customers better and faster.

1. Slow factory
2. Hidden/Skyrocketing costs
3. Imperfect employee safety
4. Inability to deliver quality products
5. Decelerated Time to market

This post focuses on how embracing industry 4.0 solutions are transforming manufacturing and help companies improve operations, reduce costs, improve safety and accelerate time to market.

IoT in Manufacturing: Industry 4.0 and Its Impact

A prime reason for the manufacturing industry to leverage Industry 4.0 solutions is to accelerate productivity, RoI, and customer experience. And Industry 4.0 solutions perfectly fit their purpose and bill. The Industry 4.0 solutions – Internet of Things, AI, ML has enabled companies to overcome the below-par performance and process inefficiencies. 

Especially, most companies focus on IoT to save up to 40-50% cost associated with operations, safety, and performance. 

The sections below will help you understand the impact of IoT in manufacturing and its benefits.  

Uses of IoT in manufacturing

“[Leading manufacturers] are getting ROI primarily from applying IoT for connected operations, remote operations, predictive analytics and preventive maintenance. – Maciej Kranz, Vice President of Strategic Innovation, Cisco.â€

IoT has been the most implemented Industry 4.0 solution in modern-day manufacturing companies. Especially, reports claim companies that IoT in manufacturing is staggeringly transforming operations even during the COVID-19 scenario. 

The statistics also point out that IoT implementations will soar post-COVID 19 as most companies have to leverage the technology to ensure employee safety (enables remote operations), at the same time must improve productivity to meet overwhelming customer demands. 

IoT market size, growth

According to an IDC report, the growth of IoT in Manufacturing is exploding like anything. The report further states that worldwide spending on the Internet of Things to reach $745 Billion in 2019, led by the Manufacturing, Consumer, Transportation, and Utilities Sectors.

 

IoT is useful in manufacturing for the below reasons:

IoT for employee safety 

IoT in manufacturing is used to monitor and track machine, staff data from a remote location. Integrated with mobile applications, the workforce can capture real-time machine data on-the-go. This also improves the accuracy of the machine data captured as human data collection is always error-prone. So, IoT creates a win-win situation for both employees and manufacturers. 

Benefits of IoT for employee safety. 

• Real-time alerts about employee movements
• Updates on employee’s health under critical work environment
• Tracking employee location within the business premise

IoT for asset tracking 

IoT for asset tracking enables the workforce to track, monitor and control assets from remote locations.  IoT is used for both human and material tracking in companies.

Benefits of real-time asset tracking using IoT

• Eliminates human errors around scanning
• Enables full utilization of assets
• Simplifies asset audits
• Improves the accuracy and transparency of asset data

IoT for inventory management 

IoT devices integrated with mobile applications will help in the process of tracking material flow, out-of-stock or overstock scenarios in real-time and improve inventory management. 

Benefits of IoT for inventory management. 

• Contactless asset tracking 
• Real-time data for informed decision making
• Highly accurate
• Asset tracking using color, size, shape, location etc. 
• Accurate and item-wise asset monitoring and auditing

IoT for predictive maintenance 

Assessing the condition of the machines frequently will help companies to avoid costs related to unwarranted machine maintenance cycles. In addition to that, IoT enabled predictive maintenance systems by helping manufacturers collect real-time data from sensors to foresee the failure of machines and delay maintenance cycle to reduce repair costs. 

Download the infographic: Guide to IoT in Manufacturing

IoT sensors can be used to monitor the critical parameters of any manufacturing process. 

• Vibration
• Temperature
• Pressure

Benefits of IoT for machine monitoring 

• Reduced repair costs
• Minimal machine failures
• Minimized downtime
• Improved maintenance cycles

IoT for production quality 

Maintaining production quality is important for branding and defecting materials falling in the hands of customers will impact manufacturing RoI and branding. IoT plays a prime role in identifying the defective materials produced and helps the operators to inspect the process flaws to avoid production quality problems. With IoT, product quality can be improved dramatically. 

Benefits of IoT in production quality improvement.

• Faster time-to-market
• Improved product quality
• Reduced costs
• Streamlined production

IoT use cases

IoT for Workplace safety

The IoT is amazingly impacting workplace safety which is critical for healthy and active internal business service.  Wearables and smart personal equipment to mobile devices have enabled safety leaders to leverage mobility and IoT for ensuring and impacting employee safety data in real-time. With an IoT-based system, the safety team can identify unknown or sudden safety risks and take proactive measures. These efforts will reduce compliance claims and risk-associated costs.

IoT for Predictive maintenance

Imagine this scenario. A manufacturing company found it hard to monitor the abnormalities and machine failures. Both are expensive and could cost arm and leg for the company. With Predictive maintenance or Conditions Based Maintenance (CBM), IoT embedded sensors and devices can monitor a machine’s actual condition.  With such setup, monitoring the signs of machine failure or abnormalities is effortless. Studying these data using machine learning, advanced analytics, and AI, developing a well-defined maintenance strategy is always simple. This reduces cost as well.

IoT for Asset tracking

Another interesting use case of IoT would be tracking assets in a manufacturing company. Generally, tracking assets in real-time is challenging for staff and there are plenty of chances of missing or misplaced asset data. By attaching IoT devices to storage containers, identifying assets within a container is easy. Along with other technologies like RFID, Barcode, NFC etc. assets can be identified accurately and the real-time data is then pushed to employees through mobile applications for utilization. This saves time and cost for the company.

IoT for Inventory management

A potential use case of inventory management in manufacturing. Identifying products from large warehouses is extremely daunting and consumes a lot of time too. With IoT, the problem can be simplified. Tagging the materials with IoT devices (along with sensors) will simplify locating that product even from a large warehouse. By this wayfinding, any product in a large warehouse becomes seamless and ensures accurate identification of products in a quick span of time, saves time and money.

IoT for Product quality

Product’s quality shortcomings can easily contribute to any company’s financial implication and could deeply impact its branding. As the production quality is difficult to measure on simple observations, leveraging the power of IoT devices will help manufacturers to monitor and track the process and performance to improve the quality of products. As IoT devices help in amassing real-time data, it gets easier to understand the process, make necessary changes to improve production quality.

IoT for Product traceability

Tracking product movement and where they are on the move is always challenging. Inability to find products on the move during production delays project delivery. With IoT devices, tracking product in the assembly line is simple. Real-time tracking of products on the move helps manufacturers get a clear idea on the product stage and this saves time and cost, and ensures faster time to market.

Top manufacturing companies have already started to implement IoT for acquiring real-time data to monitor machines, track performance, and foresee equipment failure. These factors are contributing to improved productivity, reduced machine maintenance and repair cost, etc. 

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