Embracing 4.0: Safety, Standards & Compliance

Effective communication always has been critical to running a successful manufacturing operation. As part manufacturers start and continue down the Industry 4.0 path, shop managers and personnel are not the only ones who must speak with each other. Humans and machines need to communicate too, and machines must have conversations as well.

“Machines talk to each other in a seamless fashion using open standards and common protocols,” said Matteo Dariol, lead innovation strategist for Bosch Rexroth Corp. in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

The corporation worked with other companies to develop OPC Unified Architecture, a machine language for Industry 4.0 that standardizes access to devices and systems and enables manufacturer-independent data exchange.

As manufacturing facilities adopt Industry 4.0 technologies and become smarter in the process, they also become more fluid.

“The main concept for the factory of the future is that the only fixed things in the factory are going to be the walls,” Dariol said. “Everything else is going to be repurposeable or adaptable, changeable, movable, following the flow of the order and making sure that, for example, robots become cobots that are smarter and better suited for working together with humans.”

Since 2012, Bosch Rexroth says it systematically has led factories — both its own and those of customers — into Industry 4.0. Image courtesy of Bosch Rexroth

Although everyone cares about worker safety, it’s not a big inclination compared with increasing throughput and shipping parts faster, said Daniel Carranco, director of continuous improvement for Global Shop Solutions Inc., an enterprise resource planning software developer in The Woodlands, Texas.

“Right now,” he said, “when companies think about automation, conceptually speaking, they tend to think first about how we can make things faster — how can I make these processes more efficient? I haven’t seen where the tendency is to make sure employees are safer. It’s a byproduct but not the main goal.”

However, that attitude is changing, “and I’m glad to see that,” Carranco said. “Safety, at least today, is more enhanced with processes and decisions that make people on the floor safer, not necessarily about putting technology around you to make you safer.”

In his white paper about the top five reasons to automate manufacturing, he stated that U.S. manufacturers pay nearly $1 billion per week in workers’ compensation due to injuries on the job, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Automating production processes can help improve employee safety by removing workers from dangerous procedures, enabling faster responses to emergencies with real-time monitoring, and using safety planning software to simplify safety protocol updates and emergency response plans.

Carranco said the first step in implementing automation, which is a key element of an Industry 4.0 environment, is to make sure that manufacturing processes support the automation equipment.

“If the process doesn’t support that automation,” he said, “all they are creating is a big problem because they are not thinking through.”

People also play an important role.

“There are a number of ways you can automate a shop,” Carranco said, “but if you don’t have the processes and the people who understand the ins and outs throughout the entire process, it could create a problem.”

All Together Now

Having a high level of communication on a production floor requires connectivity.

“You allow your machines to talk to you,” Dariol said, “and then you start collecting the data and building your knowledge base, giving you complete visibility of everything that is going on.”

He said a critical area to keep an eye on is condition monitoring so end users can understand the health status of their machines and be able to make decisions proactively and quickly because of the large amount of data that’s
available.

Dariol said by having a big know­ledge base, predictive maintenance is possible, such as changing a mechanical component before it fails.

“You work toward intelligence and wisdom,” he said. “You want to be able to forecast the trend of your machine and look into the future.”

With CoroPlus Machining Insights, CNC machines can transmit information in high volumes through an Ethernet connection. Image courtesy of Sandvik Coromant

Being inundated and incapacitated with too much data can be avoided by implementing the proper strategy. For example, Carranco said it’s virtually impossible to manage one record at a time and evaluate production status.

“That’s why we provide the solutions to tell that you have this big data set and don’t worry about these 100-plus or 1,000-plus records,” he said. “Just be concerned about these five because they are not good.”

Carranco said managing by exception is possible with technologies, such as the Industrial Internet of Things and ERP software, because they are interconnected by design. The goal is to ensure that activities go as planned.

“And if they go in a certain way, you are guaranteeing the quality is good, delivery is good, pricing is good,” he said. “It’s supposed to be good because you have that defined already. When things start going not according to plan, it’s when actions need to take place.”

Start Smart

To achieve high-efficiency gains, part manufacturers must prepare and make correct choices early on — “getting it right from the start,” said James Thorpe, global product manager for Sandvik Coromant U.K. (He’s based in Leicester, England, and Sandvik Coromant Co. is headquartered in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.)

He said key preparation components include method optimization and automated tool and cutting data selection. However, operation planning is an area in which customers see significant waste, he added, and automation can use cutting data in artificial intelligence-driven software to improve machining efficiency and the quality of machined components later in the value chain.