- Smart Manufacturing vs Industrie 4 vs Digital Manufacturing vs IIoT
I had the pleasure of facilitating a workshop on Smart Manufacturing at the Industry Week conference with over 120 professionals involved in different aspects of manufacturing information technology (IT) in a wide range of industries. After we briefly introduced Smart Manufacturing and shared a few results from a MESA-SCMWorld survey, I casually surveyed the group on clarity
among the new terms in manufacturing IT and adoption for the “plug and play” paradigms promoted by Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Smart Manufacturing, Digital Manufacturing, and Industrie 4.0 initiatives. Some of my observations from this interesting discussion follow.
QUESTION: Third or Fourth Industrial Revolution?
SURVEY SAYS: 4TH Industrial Revolution. The audience was pretty confident with this response. There was an overwhelming show of hands in favor of 4th versus 3rd.
Some consulting groups have favored calling this era the start of the third industrial revolution and others are calling it the fourth industrial revolution. Everyone agrees that the era of mass production is behind us. An era that was enabled by revolutionary advances like the assembly line and electrical standards. But many groups closer to manufacturing automation want to recognize that there was a third industrial revolution that started in the 1970’s fueled by advances in industrial automation and software for personal computers (PCs).
There is agreement that the next industrial revolution is starting now, and it is fueled by advances in model-based manufacturing, additive manufacturing, robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). New technologies are allowing manufacturers to move from mass production make-to-stock practices towards make-to-order mass customization business models. Based on popular opinion, we should stick to calling this the 4th Industrial Revolution.
QUESTION: IoT and IIoT side by side or one under the other?
Do we view the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as a subset of the Internet of Things (IoT) with similar standards and methods of connecting manufacturing, home and office devices to cloud applications and smart phones? Or do we see IoT and IIoT as having similar goals but using different standards and infrastructure?
SURVEY SAYS: IIoT should be subset of IoT. The majority of manufacturers want to see industrial automation use similar standards and mechanism to home and office equipment integration. They would like to see apps on their phones with the ability to view, interact and control the shop just like they have apps today controlling their home or car. IIoT standards and methods should be a subset of IoT methods and standards.
One automation vendor warned that this view of IIoT and IoT might be an oversimplified view on the subject. Point taken, but the survey was more about confirming the expectations of these initiatives and the desires of the end users—similar type of “plug and play” capabilities at the factory and at home.
Another voice wanted to claim that many companies are already doing IIoT at their plants. We went ahead and tested this claim with the audience.
QUESTION: How many companies in this audience currently have integration from
machines to enterprise systems?
SURVEY SAYS: Around 80% of hands were up.
QUESTION: How many of these companies are using open standards for integration
and could simply swap out one automation or software vendor for another?
SURVEY SAYS: Only one timid person in the audience raised their hand half way
up.
These answers point to a big difference between IIoT and prior manufacturing automation integration methods. For the last few decades we depended on custom integration, proprietary interfaces and separate protocols for integration and automation at the factory. Moving forward with IIoT we want to embrace open standards and internet protocols so we can easily swap and mix multi-vendor equipment and software which might be on-premise or in the cloud.
QUESTION: Are Smart Manufacturing and Industrie 4.0 the same thing?
SURVEY SAYS: Yes. The consensus was that in general they are close enough in scope and purpose. However, Industrie 4.0 is perceived as a very specific German initiative so the majority of participants preferred the term Smart Manufacturing.
It is important to note that if initiatives from different countries do not coordinate among each other, we could end up with different standards supported by different countries. Similar to how we ended up with slightly different electrical standards in different countries. Nevertheless, better off with a few standards than none at all and we can always use converters to plug equipment to
different standards.
I noticed that the general voting participation was lower on this topic so I paused the survey for a few clarifications.
QUESTION: Would you like more clarification on the scope of Smart Manufacturing?
SURVEY SAYS: Yes.
Smart Manufacturing is about creating smart products, smart factories, smart manufacturing processes and smart enterprise procedures that link the entire product value chain with a digital thread.
Smart factories are the foundation of Smart Manufacturing. Smart machines and robots in smart factories are capable of managing complexity, are less prone to disruption and are able to manufacture goods more efficiently. In the smart factory, human beings, machines and resources communicate with each other as naturally as in a social network.
Smart products know about their configuration, details of how they were manufactured including critical components and how they are intended to be used. They actively support the anufacturing process, answering questions such as “which parameters should be used to process me?”, “when was I made?”, “for which customer?”, and “when do I need to be serviced?”
QUESTION: Should we view Digital Manufacturing as part of Smart Manufacturing or should we view Digital and Smart as separate initiatives?
SURVEY SAYS: Not clear. So instead we further discussed the difference and relationship between smart and digital manufacturing.
The digital thread that starts with the 3D model-based definition of the product from engineering flows to smart manufacturing and to the smart supply chain linked via standard integration interfaces that connect to web applications, mobile devices and cloud services. The network of connected devices, resources systems, partners and suppliers will result in the transformation of
conventional value chains and the emergence of new business models.
Several industries have used the term Model-Based Enterprise for the initiative of creating a continuous digital thread from design 3D models and specifications (a.k.a. Model-Based Engineering) flowing downstream into the supply chain, manufacturing, inspection and aftermarket services of the product.
As stated earlier, Smart Manufacturing includes smart products and smart manufacturing processes. The digital thread must be interpreted by smart product and smart manufacturing processes in order to build to the right product specifications and configuration. Therefore, we see the digital thread as a requirement for smart manufacturing. We also agree that these two initiatives could be worked side by side if the intersection areas and integration is coordinated among the two initiatives and well defined.
QUESTION: Are IIoT and Smart Manufacturing hype or substance?
SURVEY SAYS: Hype with opportunity behind it. The participants believe there is a bit of hype in the media right now but they also believe there is opportunity for big improvements in manufacturing based on the adoption of new technologies and standards into new manufacturing business models. The intent of these initiatives resonate with the audience.
Did I clarify things? Are we smarter now? (Trick question)
Thanks to everyone that participated in the workshop, especially to those who “volunteered” to participate : )
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