Nowadays, decisions-making of a factory is shaped by four forces: market (decisions related to volume & quality); economic (cost reduction targets); social (safety standards); environmental (sustainability initiatives). Providing solutions to all of the above challenges, process optimization takes an important place in the decision-making toolkit of a contemporary manufacturer. As a quantitative tool for industrial […]
Initially, Industrial Automation (IA) emerged primarily as a domain of high-volume manufacturers in the automotive industry. However, more and more IA practitioners begin to urge small- and medium-size manufacturers to embrace the technology. You see, as industrial automation technology matures, it becomes more accessible to smaller-size manufacturers and allows them to reap economic […]
Business process improvement often begins with setting a big project goal and planning an extensive scope of action for a short-term period. This approach is based on the assumption that the greater goal will inspire and provide motivation to act and deliver results to those involved. In practice, it may result in failure to deliver […]
Most production installations require regular maintenance. The most common maintenance methods are: time-based – can keep the installation in good condition given the right time-interval but are high cost; failure-based – take place only when a problem occurs and are associated with unexpected equipment failure, production loss and downtime. An alternative and more efficient method is condition-based monitoring, which uses sensors to determine the condition of the equipment. When […]
In many production processes, energy is a significant cost. Hence, saving energy leads to reduced production costs. It also makes production system more sustainable. To identify most suitable energy saving measures for your production plant, you need to know how much, where, when and why energy is used. How much? The amount of energy consumed can be measured at the place where all […]
A story of how data became the tool in our quest for productivity, what Industry 4.0 can offer and why it is beneficial for both small and big manufacturers. For the big part of the human history a vast majority of world’s production output came from farms and was limited by the fixed size of the […]
There is a number of questions that need be considered in production process improvement. What is the value that the production process has to generate for the customer? How should the process look like to deliver this value? How to identify solutions to key problems and process bottlenecks? What does successful implementation involve? And many […]
Historically, humans have seen robots as tools. For decades robots have performed tasks on command and have been limited in their freedom of action, showed low performance whenever they were not designed for the task and relied on humans whenever a problem or an unforeseen scenario occurred. However, with recent technological advancements we have begun […]
This week’s topic of Simple Solutions series is non-invasive liquid level detection. Production equipment that comes into contact with liquid requires regular maintenance and cleaning. A simple solution such as a non-invasive (capacitive, ultrasound or infrared) sensor can make this processes easier and less costly. Smooth surfaces are commonly easier to clean (as opposed to a surface with […]
In many production processes the temperature is an important parameter for the end result of the product. Consequently, knowing how to control temperature is critical to proper operation. This is regardless of the process being manual or automated. When aiming to control temperature in the production process, it is important to take into account the […]