Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 - IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things)

In the age of Industry 4.0, networked devices and machines bring a new dynamic to corporate processes. The intelligently used data of the Internet of Things (IoT) and especially the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) hold potential for groundbreaking innovations and new business models.

With the advancing level of digitalisation and the increasing use of sensors and applications, IIoT is becoming an important part of the future strategy of companies. According to experts, the number of networked devices will increase to more than 50 billion by 2020; the data stream is constantly growing. In the industrial environment, this fundamentally changes the requirements for the infrastructure and the use of a modern IoT platform. To master the challenges of the digital revolution, companies need an individual IT concept and powerful technologies. They form the prerequisites for being able to use all the advantages of Industry 4.0: efficient processes, dynamic structures, proactive courses of action, space for innovations and new business models - strong trump cards in global competition.

Raw material of the future: data

Making data usable as a raw material is more than the mere digitisation of objects and processes. Industry 4.0 stands above all for the intelligent use and linking of data generated by sensors and the communication of networked devices and systems. Important components are suitable solutions and processes for data acquisition and data analysis. For the IIoT and the associated data management, Intelligent Solutions GmbH offers needs-based software, customised managed services and innovative IIoT analytics. Software solutions that have been tried and tested over many years, such as SightLine^®, can be easily adapted to the needs of Industry 4.0.

Analytics, mehr als Business Intelligence

Traditional approaches to optimising manufacturing processes, such as lean production, are management-driven and experience-based. The increasing digitalisation of manufacturing and the connection of manufacturing systems to the internet within the framework of Industry 4.0 lead to enormous amounts of structured and unstructured data. This data enables new, data-driven optimisation approaches and new services. Ultimately, it is a matter of systematically gaining new knowledge from this data in a timely manner, also for the continuous improvement of processes.

Classic Business Intelligence (BI) applications often reach their limits here (architecturally) due to the following technical weaknesses: they usually only use a small section of the existing data without a holistic view. The problem lies on the one hand in the unstructured data and on the other hand in how the data is "read" by the BI applications. The classic approach Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) is a process in which data from several, possibly differently structured, data sources are transferred into the Data-Warehouse (DWH) and are then available for analysis. This approach makes it difficult to analyse unstructured data in a timely manner. This is where the further development: "Analytics" helps.

Analytics describes the real-time evaluation of data in companies involving a variety of very different data sources, including unstructured ones. It makes it possible to answer the question: "What should happen?" The technological basis for analytics is formed by data sources such as sensors, ERP, SCADA or even CRM systems. This data is transmitted via protocols such as OPC UA, profinet, profibus and others. They are summarised in real time and analysed with regard to any anomalies and also correlated with historical patterns. Analytics thus supports the decision on where and how to intervene.

Conclusion:

For companies, the IIoT offers additional opportunities that result from the networking of devices on the one hand and the analysis of the data generated on the other. In addition to leaner processes and an innovative technological basis, the advantages include the freedom to tackle further developments and design entirely new product and service concepts. Data thus becomes a valuable raw material for which the appropriate (IT) infrastructure must be created that also adapts dynamically to growing networking. At the same time, this infrastructure must be able to analyse even large-volume data in a timely manner.

The very powerful and industry-independent analytics system SightLine^® is an indispensable helper for Industrie 4.0 projects. SightLine^® from Sightline Systems offers a sophisticated, but remarkably easy-to-use and also very advanced analytics solution. By simultaneously capturing and correlating tau-sends of data points, it offers deeper insight than other systems. The combination of real-time collection of all kinds of metrics - regardless of industry and even with very large amounts of data - and real-time analytics create the conditions for answering the business-relevant questions for and of tomorrow.

Find out what opportunities Industry 4.0 holds for your company and what role analytics plays as one of the powerhouses of the digital transformation: Download our whitepaper "The power of data: The Manufacturing Industry in the Sign of Industry 4.0" free of charge here.

If you are interested in this topic, I recommend our informative website on Industry 4.0 and IIoT:
https://www.iiot-analytica.de