Embracing digitalisation the smart way

The recent TIMTOS 2017 Summit brought together industry experts with an eye toward making the vision of smart manufacturing a reality and promoting Industry 4.0. The summit consisted of 30 minute lectures, broken down into five tracks that run simultaneously. Some highlights of the keynotes are:

Dr Ken Chen, Vice President of Siemens Ltd, Taiwan’s topic is “Paving the way to future smart machine.” His speech talked about how we can build manufacturing process that automatically improve themselves as a result of their experiences, including the basic rules that govern learning processes. According to Dr Chen, machine with intelligent capability brings the future of machine and behave like human being with this Siemens can give the answer for the future of smart machine.

Bryce Barnes, Senior Manager Connected Machines and Robots, Cisco, spoke about “How the Internet of Things will Transform the Global Machine.” According to Bryce Manufacturing and the Internet of Things are two worlds coming together. 

He explained, the first industrial revolution used water and steam power to mechanise production. The second used electric power to create mass production. The third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a fourth industrial revolution is building on the third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.

Bryce said that the fourth industrial revolution leads to digital transformation that allows us to re-imagine how we enable, differentiate and define how we work, live, learn and play. It is predicated on a hyper-connected world; one where people, processes, data and things (digital and physical things) communicate freely with one another and add and extract unprecedented value of their endless interactions.

He mentioned that connected machines represent huge opportunities, and that 92% of machines are not network connected all over the world. Bryce finds that most CNC machining is still operator driven or craft driven. The movement from build at any cost of efficiency is accelerating. As a service strategies are evolving but not fast enough. Finally, mechanical & process innovation are essential but not enough. The call to action for these outcomes is IOT for machine tools. But what is driving IOT for machine tools? It’s the asset utilisation, optimised consumables, accurate job costing and loss reduction.

Meng-Shiun, Tsai Ph.D. on the topic of “Design and manufacture of machine tools and wisdom control technology,” mentioned two main points: one is how to build a multi-physical digital design system, and the second is how to develop intelligent technology alone. The goal of developing a multi-physical design system is to predict the accuracy of the workpiece contour, surface roughness, and machining time before processing by means of a virtual simulation after a given machining program, and through CAD/CAM software to 3D images to produce processing surface line. The goal of developing stand-alone intelligent technology is to develop the value-added and detection system of the controller and hope to diagnose the tool wear through line measurement. Life estimation provide a set of on-line measurement mechanism to predict the surface quality of the process. The report shows the results of its team in integrating servo and cutting simulation systems, 3D CAD/CAM virtual simulation and intelligent human-machine development.

Manfred Koch, Head of Industry Cluster Machine Building of SICK AG, talked about “Smart Machines Need Smart Sensors.”

He said that machinery, in particular in the area of machine tools, is facing a continuous change in innovation. In the beginning of industrialisation, mechanisation was the first step from handmade products to machine supported production. This step has ensured to cope with the increasing demand of society for higher volume of goods at lower costs, to produce faster along with the changes as well as to favour new production methods with better efficiency.

“Next innovation steps were influenced by automation technology which led to the use of electronic sensors and machine controllers with the benefit of precise, reliable and flexible machine processes, for instance in movement, positioning and safety. For decades, the improvements followed incremental steps and excelled machine improvements towards higher production speed, quality and resource efficiency,” Koch added.

He explained that today’s society has access to new IT capabilities with the result of paperless, flexible order configuration which even allows tracking of the shipment on a smart phone. Thus, the trend is changing from mass products with little variants, e.g., cars, to increasingly individualised products with “lot-size one” especially in consumer products such as sport shoes.

Koch said that these mainstreams, enhanced machine automation and IT use of customer foster a new era and force machine builders to fulfil challenges such as Flexible Automation – Quality – Track & Trace and Safety. The new requirements need answers as well in sensor technology. Modern, innovative sensors use  ASIC technology, which provides the ability to process signals faster, less sensitive to environment influence and more precisely. Moreover, they have the capability of pre-processing information already inside the sensor. Examples are data analysis for predictive information or even the ability to differentiate objects simply based on their characteristics.

Batch changes must already be supported by the sensor, saving set-up time and ensuring appropriate set-up. In combination with intelligent communication, smart sensors provide the ability of increased application functionality. Big data can be made available, but does not necessarily have to be sent via a programmable logic controller or other machine controllers. Avoiding such bottlenecks, data can be transferred parallel to the higher level machine or plant control directly.

Finally Koch said smart sensors serve both worlds: on the one hand proper machine functionality, process flexibility and a higher transparency related for instance to optimised set-up or trouble shooting. On the other hand, smart sensors give added value for the overall production information flow.

Jeng-Shyong Chen, a Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering National Chung-Husing University discussed “Digital and Intelligent Machine Tool Technology.” In his speech he mentioned the megatrends of machine tool technology. Indus 4.0 smart factory is about intelligent functions and software, while advance materials is on ultrasonic machining and 3D printing. The roadmap to Machine 4.0 Project begins with 5-axis ultrasonic machining (2017), intelligent ultrasonic machining system (2018) and intelligent hybrid manufacturing system (2019).

Chen explained that from the conventional metal machining to the advanced material machining and 3D printing, aerospace will switch from aluminium to composite materials, while mobile phones from metal case will shift to ceramic case and 2D/3D glass, electric vehicle on the other hand will change from metal frame to composite frame, and we will see fewer and fewer of die/moulds in the 3D printing technology.

According to a survey from Manufacturing Engineering Magazine, 39% of respondents said post-processing requirements are a top challenge in using AM now and in the             future.

The 3D metal printing has been proven to fabricate complicated geometric parts in an efficient way, but this technology must evolve to be able to engineer the mechanical properties of a part (both in internal and surface portions), too, he added.

Andreas Schuhbauer, Market Segment, Manager Machine Tool Automation, KUKA AG, talked about “Smart Factory: How Smart?” Here he stated the challenges of the future. Schuhbauer said that the world of work is going to undergo fundamental change. But take note that this is a development, rather than an abrupt change. One that will be accelerated by the following megatrends.

He explained that in a smart factory, machinery and equipment will have the ability to improve process through self-optimisation and autonomous decision making. And the processes impacted will include: factory and production planning, product development, logistics, enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution systems (MES), control technologies, and individual sensors and actuators in the field. Therefore, smart production will use a flexible tool and positioning technology and robots that cooperate during a production step.

“Since human labour is a very important cost driver, robotic co-workers are mainly used to improve worker productivity. In human-robot collaboration, the robot assists the human operator. This means: The machine does not replace the human, but complements his capabilities and relieves him of arduous tasks”, Schuhbauer added.

Having heard all these, embracing smart manufacturing ultimately determine a business' success. We are at a point where paradigm shifts and technological changes are a necessity, but we are seeing businesses fail at taking complete advantage of the benefits they offer. Successful supply chain management systems allow for visibility into integrated metrics that can help drive profitability and move the supply chain from a push-based to a pull-based model. When done right, businesses maximise cash flow, minimise lost sales and reduce overstocks.