Introduction
Today Internet of Things or IoT has reached to the very core of majority of the businesses. Industries like manufacturing, oil & gas, mining,finance, healthcare, and logistics are adopting and leveraging the benefits of the technology in order to generate a better ROI and a better monetizing processes for their business. The main reason that the organizations are getting inclined towards IoT is the pool of features it offers to the stakeholders present onsite or at a distinct location. With the features like predictive maintenance and business intelligence, the technology is one of the key game changer for the businesses to stay ahead of its competitors.
The journey of getting to the top for any business is not an easy one. It has many challenges that require some special attention in order to overcome them. With the implementation of IoT in a business, the business heads or stakeholders can tackle these challenges in a hassle-free manner.
In this article, we will discuss some laborious challenges a production line in a manufacturing industry faces and how IoT helps the company to overcome them.
We shall focus on challenges such as;
- Unavailability of information in real-time
- Elongated changeover time
- Disoriented workload at various stations
- Production quality
Let’s have a sneak peek at each of the above-mentioned challenges and see how these challenges can be tackled easily with the implementation of IoT.
Having information about the operation of every resource in an organization is extremely crucial. However, the criticality of such information gets even high when the production line stops as a result of breakdown. It is at this point when the availability of data in real-time gets extremely important.
Solution
It can be the progress report of an on-going job, regular updates on the status of the tasks, or information required to monitor the entire operation of the production line, IoT offers the stakeholders with real-time, uninterrupted and standardized data at every level of the task. This provides a detailed analysis of the performance of the production line in a factory. When supervisors, managers, and business heads are equipped with these data, they can easily identify the pain areas that are obstructing the productivity of the production line and can make better decision to meet the dynamic demands for their business.
Elongated changeover time
Changeover is the seed of success for every manufacturing industry. No industry can keep on producing the same product and expect the same result all over again. However, changeover time is also a period when the most of the resources of the factory do not generate any value. In a factory, a changeover time can last from a few minutes to several days. And, no business wants the production to stop completely for that amount of time.
Solution
With the implementation of IoT, supervisors can get the insights that can help them to identify the optimum solution to manage the changeover time while keeping the production line functioning and generating some value from the resources of the factory.
Disoriented workload at various stations
There may be instances when some of the stations on the production line are overburdened with jobs and some of them are idle. Under such circumstances, there may be some bottlenecks and efficiency issues in the production.
Solution
For the functionalities such as data collection and statistical analysis, IoT implementation is compatible with almost any type of station in a production line. The technology allows the benefits of automated tracking and monitoring average time required to complete a particular task which as a result allows the managers and supervisors to have a precise time estimation to resourcefully balance the production line.
Production quality
The quality of the final product matters a lot when it comes to be in the game of business and generate more profit. However, with the absence of a proper platform, identification of the station or location from where the quality is an issue can be a tedious and chaotic job. Once the location of the faulty station is identified, to figure out the reason for the quality difference, well, it’s a different ball of game altogether!
Solution
The IoT offers a wide spectrum of information from various stations in a production line. This facilitates the users with the remote monitoring of every station thoroughly. With the delivered insights, IoT development services can help a manufacturing factory to maintain and standardize the quality.
Conclusion
IoT has gained a tremendous momentum in the various business sectors today. With Industry 4.0 rolling in full pace, IoT is making manufacturing smarter every other day. Businesses today are impressed with the capabilities of the technology that allows them to overcome bottlenecks that affect the productivity of their factory. With the implementation of IoT, value generation and better monetization are the new goals that drives manufacturing business.
