Finding an app for that

After acquiring my first iPhone, I searched the Internet for apps to use in the shop. I found 70 hits for “machinist” or “machining” and 45 for “cutting tool.” Conversely, there were 11,169 hits for movie apps and 37,616 for music apps.

Most apps focus on mobile technology for consumers. This may be one reason demand for manufacturing apps is comparatively low, and the search results were on par with my expectations.

Large-scale demand for apps and mobile devices will not come from individual users; it will come in the form of large-scale adaptation and development of enterprise-level solutions. Although manufacturers are beginning to see limited use of mobile devices on the shop floor, integration of enterprise-level mobile technology into everyday factory life will be slow for several reasons.

Tablets and smartphones are relatively inexpensive compared to laptops or workstations, but even inexpensive devices can amount to a large capital expenditure if everyone in an organization is issued one. In addition, tablets and phones can be fragile and may not be appropriate for industrial use, which could require something like the $2,200 Panasonic ToughPad.

Many companies issue phones to engineers and other professionals, but I doubt many or any of them issue phones to shop personnel. In my experience, cellphones were not even permitted to be used by shop personnel on the manufacturing floor.

In addition, easy-to-use industrial apps simply do not exist. As the industrial use of mobile devices increases, those apps will continue to be centered on interaction with manufacturing and enterprise resource planning systems, engineering software and machine tool controls. These systems lack commonality of software and processors that make app development on a large scale practical and cost-effective.

Anytime a company decides to interact with its enterprise-level software outside of the normal interface, extensive development is required. Large-scale IT development is expensive and usually requires continuous support. However, while enterprise level applications will be slow to evolve, site- and individual-level applications will proliferate.

I expect to see major industrial software developers produce some powerful applications aimed at improving machine shop efficiencies. No doubt you have noticed the push to go paperless in many daily activities; manufacturing is no different. As paper slowly disappears from the shop floor, mobile devices will hasten the transition because they present an ideal way to deliver documents, such as routings, process instructions, drawings and specifications.

Mobile devices eliminate the cost of printing and ensure everyone is working to the most current revision because changes to documents are propagated instantaneously. Currently, computer work stations are the most common way to deliver digital documents to the shop, but as tablets and smartphones become more robust, they will become a standard delivery method.

Using mobile devices to interact with machine tools is also becoming more common. Most if not all CNC machine builders have some method for delivering machine data to a mobile device, and it is now possible to receive real-time production data from machine tools on mobile devices. Significant innovation and development will occur in this area because good use of data can improve productivity and reduce operating costs. Investment in innovation is easier to justify when a manager can demonstrate tangible benefits.

In manufacturing, mobile devices and apps are used predominately for reporting, monitoring, calculating and reference. These are all passive applications and only access a small portion of the available power in today’s mobile devices. The most successful apps, however, will be active ones.

Consider the tools available on a smartphone, such as cameras and accelerometers. The future for mobile devices will involve the active use of these tools to solve engineering problems. It may be possible to measure rpm of a cutting tool using a strobe light and camera. Accelerometers may make it possible to create an app that can measure the frequency of chatter and suggest changes to eliminate it. Having an app that can use a device camera to measure part form or digitize part geometry may be possible.

Manufacturing is slowly adopting more mobile devices and apps into daily factory life, especially for reporting and monitoring. However, I look forward to the day I can compare a digitized image from my phone to a CAD model or measure the natural frequency of a cutting tool using my tablet. CTE