by Gary Mintchell | Feb 2, 2024 | Business, Manufacturing IT, News
I have been wondering where ThinkIQ is going to wind up. It’s a pretty cool startup in the smart manufacturing software space (aka, MES). The company has taken an investment by Mitsubishi Corporation and a collaboration agreement to jointly accelerate the growth of ThinkIQ’s digital manufacturing platform in Japan. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.
ThinkIQ has built its open platform working closely with U.S. and European government smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 initiatives and global standards bodies. The investment is further testament to ThinkIQ’s technology and will drive expansion leveraging Mitsubishi’s global presence.
ThinkIQ provides visibility to the manufacturing shop floor across each tier of complex supply chains. The SaaS platform securely connects to the physical world of legacy and smart equipment, IoT sensors, OT and IT systems to bring all relevant data into a single analytics platform that brings context, meaning and discoverability for all participants in supply chain and manufacturing operations. ThinkIQ Vision brings vision-processing software combined with powerful pre-packaged Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence capabilities to turn standard cameras on the shop floor into sensors that eliminate blind spots across equipment, materials, and people to greatly enhance the available data for Continuous Intelligence.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 1, 2024 | Commentary, News
Here is the last of the prediction articles I picked up in December but had too much news to pack in. Usually November and December are void of news. These thoughts are from Aaron Merkin, CTO, Fluke Reliability & Ankush Malhotra, President, Fluke Reliability.
The promise of AI to bridge the skilled labor gap
Traditional AI – This is artificial intelligence in its traditional form, learned data that powers predictive insights. We continue to see a shortage of skilled labor to support the industry overall as well as within reliability programs specifically. Active condition monitoring of assets is a prerequisite for a successful predictive maintenance program. Yet organizations wishing to begin, expand, or sustain condition monitoring programs frequently do not have access to the skilled labor necessary for them to execute these programs internally. We expect to see more organizations adopt applications that augment skilled users and enable them to make faster, more effective decisions. AI will supplant human expertise for analytics use cases, reducing barriers to entry for condition monitoring providers, lowering both skill level and the number of resources required to implement predictive maintenance programs. Solutions that involve AI-powered analytics with a significant amount of learned data already stored lower the barriers to widespread adoption of PdM and can increase the amount of assets measured in a condition monitoring strategy. With the availability of AI-powered analytics and remote condition monitoring services that provide expert analysis on a company’s behalf, even expertise-constrained operations can adopt a data-based maintenance strategy.
Adoption of Generative AI – The second category where we anticipate significant growth is the adoption of Generative AI co-pilots by operators, technicians and other plant floor or field personnel. Generative AI can act as a much-needed storehouse for institutional knowledge. As more and more skilled workers reach retirement age and leave the workforce, Generative AI takes on greater importance as a training and educational tool, passing knowledge along to new workers.
AI tools are at their best when they share workflows with human experts. In the year ahead, we expect to see generative AI:
- performing guided machine maintenance for new workers (and in the process, helping new workers to upskill).
- providing support to plant managers, especially those tasked with managing multiple worksites.
- working alongside human experts to provide support on the plant floor.
- facilitating the shift from experienced, highly skilled labor.
- replacing low-skilled, entry-level white-collar labor across the enterprise.
- We also anticipate greater outsourcing of narrow expert skillsets to augment staff generalists. The adoption of generative AI will assist in bridging communication gaps, sharing data and insights, and bringing far-flung teams together.
Increase in Predictive Maintenance for Sustainability Purposes
Whilst in many industry segments sustainability has been a debated topic for a while, in some ways the impact of a well-run maintenance strategy are either overlooked or left untracked. We expect to see an increased focus on using predictive maintenance to drive sustainability results for businesses, beyond just equipment reliability in the coming years. This includes using predictive maintenance tools for the availability of renewable energy assets, extending asset life to reduce the carbon footprint of industrial equipment, reducing pollution by maintaining efficient running machines, improving energy efficiency by managing engines correctly, and maintaining product quality in a production environment to prevent wastage.
Increased availability of IIoT
In recent years, economic pressures have increased the overall emphasis on efficiency and the threat of a downturn isn’t going away. This uncertainty also places emphasis on maintaining, rather than replacing machinery. We expect this trend to reach a new height in 2024, leading to greater adoption of IIoT tools and an increased demand for AI analytics.
In particular, we anticipate greater use of automation across sectors, and a far greater push to keep assets up and running for longer. This in turn will drive more organizations to shift to a condition monitoring / connected reliability approach. Advances in technology have dramatically lowered the cost of continuous measurement and monitoring tools, like wireless sensors. This is already resulting in increased coverage for the balance of plant assets and greater demand for analytic tools. The more assets measured, the more efficient a plant runs which impacts cost, inventory and OEE targets – it’s a win/win.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 31, 2024 | Commentary, News
I received this outlook for the year from pwc. I’ve been told by other investment people that there are many smaller companies ripe to be acquired. This is the new innovation in a mature market. You’ll see the larger companies acquiring technology and expertise.
Overall deal volume and value fell in 2023 relative to 2022, which had been lower than 2021’s record high. Transactions in 2023 were largely aimed at addressing acquirers’ strategic gaps and/or expanding their capabilities. While there were industrial manufacturing mega deals (greater than $5 billion in enterprise value) in 2023, there were fewer of them compared to 2022.
Companies are increasingly undertaking thorough portfolio reviews as they seek to divest non-core assets and market dynamics continue to give buyers pause with respect to making acquisitions. These dynamics include macroeconomic uncertainty, the high cost of borrowing, and still-high valuations. A rebound in M&A activity will most likely require improved macroeconomic clarity, increased corporate confidence, and stable financing markets. Once these requirements are met, we expect the rebound in activity to be accelerated due to the preparatory work currently being performed by prospective sellers.
For deals currently being completed, buyers are seeking to mitigate risk, often through purchasing smaller, strategic assets and/or structuring deals in unique ways (such as making greater use of private capital and earnouts).
We anticipate industrial manufacturing deal activity in the first half of 2024 to be stable relative to 2023, followed by an increase in activity later in the year.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 26, 2024 | News, Organizations
A number of consortia and other collaborative groups have sprung up recently to foster standard approaches to new technologies. One such group is the Digital Twin Consortium (DTC). As technology moves more quickly than human organizations, the DTC has announced a liaison agreement in December with the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance. This agreement is not only for the exchange of information but also to bring digitalization and collaboration to the next level.
The Open Industry 4.0 Alliance functions as a collaborative consortium comprising of prominent industrial companies actively involved in deploying cross-vendor Industry 4.0 solutions and services for manufacturing facilities and automated warehouses. Within industry and technology working groups, subject matter experts conceive practical scenarios and put them into practice using the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance reference architecture. These solutions, alongside detailed implementation instructions, are disseminated within the community and made accessible to parties beyond the Alliance.
“We are excited about working with the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance,” said Dan Isaacs, GM & CTO of DTC. “We look forward to helping manufacturers and solutions providers further the use of digital twins in smart factories, oil & gas, pharma, and others based on Industry 4.0 and key open industry standards.”
“The collaboration between the DTC and the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance aims to drive the alignment of technology components and other elements to ensure interoperability,” says Ricardo Dunkel, Technical Director at the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance. “Together we are working on the standardization and integration of technologies in vertical use cases, proof-of-concepts and Value Innovation Platforms (VIP). This collaborative partnership will be strengthened through the exchange of information, regular consultations and joint events to drive digitalization and promote collaboration.”
The two groups have agreed to the following:
- Realizing interoperability by harmonizing technology components and other elements
- Aligning work in Digital Twin Consortium Capabilities and Technology for adoption within vertical domains through proof of value projects and use cases, including:
- Composable and Architectural Frameworks,
- Advanced Capabilities and Technology showcases
- Security and Trustworthiness applications
- Conceptual, informational, structural, and behavioral models
- Enabling technologies such as AR, VR, AI, and other advancements
- Case study development from initial concept through operational analysis
- The DTC and Open Industry 4.0 Alliance will exchange information through regular consultations, seminars, and training development vehicles.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 25, 2024 | Business, Commentary, News
Singapore has become one of my highest website traffic originators over the past year. I know much manufacturing and production occurs there and in the region. Then I ran across this analysis from Samatha Mou, a research analyst for Interact Analysis. Mou is based in China providing support in the Industrial Automation sector. Check out the report here.
A series of global manufacturing hubs are being established in south-east Asia, including those for semiconductors in Malaysia, electronics in Vietnam, and automotive in Thailand. However, the concentration of sector-specific manufacturing in these territories is unlikely to trouble China’s vast economy.
As manufacturing becomes increasingly globalized, our research indicates that a number of countries in south-east Asia are becoming hubs for certain products and components. These include Malaysia – semiconductors; Vietnam – electronics; and Thailand – automotive.
The latest work by analysts at Interact Analysis shows the trend for international companies establishing facilities in the region is showing little sign of stopping, despite predictions of a growing trend for reshoring and nearshoring in many western markets and legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the United States encouraging domestic production of technology such as lithium-ion batteries. Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand all offer relatively cheap destinations for the manufacture of parts for export to other markets.
In addition to global corporations choosing to base manufacturing operations in south-east Asia, some Chinese manufacturers are also expanding operations to other countries in the region. Creating manufacturing hubs, such as those in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, can help eliminate inefficiencies, provide proximity to expertise, remove time zone problems, and provide greater control over production costs.
In conclusion, we are likely to see greater concentration of these industries in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand as each country appears to be specializing in production of parts. However, this is unlikely to have a significant impact on the vast manufacturing economies of China and India in the short term, and may well feed components and parts into their domestic manufacturing industries. We are also likely to see exports from the trio of south-east Asian territories to other regions, such as the expanding electric vehicle and batteries markets in the Americas and Europe.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 23, 2024 | Automation, Networking, News
I’m catching up on December news. This is a company whose engineers incorporated much new technology for a project.
FieldComm Group announced that the Daikin Industries Ltd. Plant in Kashima, Japan, has been selected the 2023 Plant of the Year. This is the 21st annual awarding of this unique international honor, presented to end user companies in the process automation industry to recognize the exceptional and valuable application of FOUNDATION Fieldbus, FDI and/or HART Communication technologies.
The Daikin Kashima plant produces a wide range of fluorochemical products used in air conditioning equipment, automobiles, semiconductor production, and other applications. Advanced digital technologies have been applied at this site as part of a digital transformation (DX) initiative. The team has implemented HART-enabled instrumentation, and associated digital diagnostic tools and predictive analytics, all combined with artificial intelligence (AI), so the facility can transition from traditional time-based maintenance to more effective condition-based maintenance.
By first learning normal plant behavior from historized big data, the AI system can then perform nonlinear regression analysis on live data using a neural network, enabling the anomaly detection and prediction needed to address potential problems and avoid unexpected shutdowns.
Many valve positioners, pressure transmitters, and Coriolis flowmeters were already HART-enabled, and the team used Fast Ethernet-based HART converters to access other equipment, along with various DCS/PLC systems. Daikin officials point out that success of AI depends on the accuracy of available data, and HART devices made a difference in this regard.
“The HART signals of each device are wonderful data packed with the know-how of each device manufacturer. By having AI learn this along with various process data in the plant, it’s more likely to be able to learn various signs of equipment anomalies,” said Masumi Yoshida of the Daikin Industries engineering department.
Condition-based maintenance at this plant over the past three years has reduced maintenance costs by an estimated US $400,000, and the team is looking to expand the technology to many more production sites around the world.
A complete list of recipients and their success stories are available.
