Those who are into marketing of Industry 4.0 related stuff are faced with an uneasy question …. “Whatever has been considered important enough for the Business has always been monitored, reviewed and acted upon … through automation OR otherwise … what basic tangible difference will the full blown deployment of Industry 4.0 make, apart from bringing in the convenience and automation factor?”
Although one often hears phrases like “Connecting shop floor to Top Floor” …. It does not come out clearly and strongly what way it would actually make any difference at ground level.
It would be very wrong to even hint that Industry did not have credible data and efficient systems to manage their processes … in fact they have had plethora of them, albeit in isolation and those operated by far in standalone mode; what probably gives us an opportunity for further improvement by forging a synergy through grand integration and leverage the benefits of the same.
One Example of how Grand Integration could benefit the shop floor:
- Production Managers have data on Productivity, Tool Cost and Delivery compliance while QA has the quality reports, SQC data, Cp / Cpk , rejection data, customer complaints while Maintenance has Machine History Card, Calibration records and data on Predictive Maintenance Drivers …. With grand integration of standalone knowledge silos it is possible to have proactive, intelligent and timely suggestion of probable “Cause-Effect Linkage” that needs to be acted upon to pre-empt an imminent problem.
- With “at rest data analytics” of historical events it would be a self-learning and evolving intelligence that would depend lesser on individual’s bias, competences and experience baked expertise.
- With “Real Time Analytics” it is even possible to prompt replacement of tool or tweaking of machining parameters to kill chatter marks coming at the ongoing job.
- Benefits are not difficult to see … compare above scenario with the hustle and bustle of Quality Circles, CFT meetings, Kaizens, Brain Storming sessions that Industry has been addicted to. As is cheap Hindi detective novels … the mystery gets resolved only after many murders.
- Anything done “Internally” is generally assumed to come free of cost; but if one considers the hourly rate of persons who sit for those marathon meetings … actually finding some solution internally may actually work out much costlier than outsourcing it to some competent start-up.
One Example of how the Grand Integration could benefit the Industry as a whole:
- Often we hear a market analysis statement “Automotive Market is cyclic in India …..”
- It clearly implies helplessness that Industry has no clue about the causes of cyclicity in market; and apart from waiting for the period of cycle there is precious little which could be done by OEMs to improve the situation.
- With application of Industry 4.0 at sector / industry level it would certainly be possible to know and control the factors that cause cyclicity by robust planning.
- Industry associations and Government can then act on those levers and proactively avoid cyclicity to the benefit of sustained smooth sailing for all OEMs
- Apart from short term windfall gains to some greedy selfish organizations; actually cyclicity does not help anybody in the long run … apart from wastage of resources / investment; it only unduly puts stress on physical environment, work relations ( knee jerk temporary workmen hiring and layoffs ), social environment and sustained employment potential.
It would be gross understatement to say that “Industry 4.0” philosophy and modus operandi is only meant for a manufacturing organization …. It could certainly have much larger influence on efficient and effective Planning and Controls right up to Government level.
AVINASH KHARE