Coming Revolution: Inspection Efficiency

Contrary to the history lessons from middle school about “the” Industrial Revolution, it is a widely held belief that the modern world has experienced three industrial revolutions. In the first, industry harnessed the power of steam and water. Mass production, reliable electrical power and division of labor drove the second revolution. Electronics and the computer defined the third.

Researchers, backed by several governments and significant industrial partners, believe cyber-physical systems (CPS) will be the cornerstone of the fourth industrial revolution, which has been called “Industry 4.0.” According to the National Science Foundation, CPS are engineered systems built from, and dependent upon, the seamless integration of computational algorithms and physical components.

Networking of these devices is expected to give rise to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). We typically associate the internet with computers, but the proliferation of devices capable of interconnecting has created an internet of many other devices.

Current technology allows reliable collection and sharing of data among devices and machines, which, combined with logical processing, could give rise to smarter, more-autonomous machines for production.

RFID tags in conjunction with smart machines allow for easier custom manufacturing. Image courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Siemens AG developed a scenario depicting how CPS could influence manufacturing in the future. Today, a typical shampoo factory makes a batch of shampoo having a specific fragrance, then fill tens of thousands of bottles with it. Afterwards, the factory will reset the line, produce a batch of shampoo with a different fragrance and begin bottling it.

In the Siemens model, a customer would place an online order for shampoo with a specific fragrance. The order information would be saved on an RFID (radio frequency identification) chip on the bottle. As the bottle moved through the factory, the chip would interact with the smart machines controlling the fragrance and other ingredients, label and any other product-specific features for that particular shampoo. (See the whole story at tinyurl.com/siemens-shampooRFID.)

Ultimately, the machines that make up a CPS become smarter through the sharing and analysis of data, which form the foundation for autonomous operation and can be used to improve manufacturing efficiency.

For example, at Mitsubishi we use robotics and YAG lasers to weld formed parts during certain fabrication processes. We form large panels, which are trimmed to final shape on a 5-axis waterjet machine. Trimmed edges are then fit together and welded using a laser-welding robot.