Analytics insights

• Incorporating predictive and preventative maintenance through asset monitoring and data analysis enhances operational efficiency, reduces unplanned downtime and helps meet compliance mandates in manufacturing plants.
• The adoption of remote monitoring technologies and real-time data systems empowers manufacturers to minimize inefficiencies, address maintenance proactively and adapt to labor shortages.

Digitization, Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing make it easy to assume manufacturing plants are running at top efficiency. However, that’s not always the case. While many have embraced advanced technologies to improve operations, some plants rely on reactive, run-to-fail maintenance processes.

Research shows predictive and preventative methods — managing assets through monitoring equipment and incorporating software reporting data — optimizes operational efficiencies, meets compliance mandates and reduces unplanned downtime.

Cost of inefficiencies

An article in Forbes pointed out the many downsides of an inefficient plant such as:

• A lack of real-time visibility into operations

• Reliance on manual and paper-based data collection, entry and sharing

• Difficulty making knowledge-based decisions

• Numerous information silos where key data gets stranded.

Another significant ramification of not incorporating advanced technologies is unplanned downtime. Eighty-two percent of manufacturers have experienced at least one downtime incident over the past three years and the average manufacturer confronts 800 hours of equipment downtime per year, which comes at a heavy cost. For example, the typical automotive manufacturer loses $22,000 per minute when the production line stops.

Manufacturing plants are facing several challenges at the same time: an aging workforce coupled with the transfer of knowledge and increased demand for higher quality products utilizing fewer resources. Navigating these issues is critical to maintaining ongoing operations and controlling costs. If something additional happens, such as unplanned equipment downtime, the results can be a logistical nightmare and financial disaster.

U.S. manufacturing is in the thick of an expected shortage of two million workers between 2015–2025, according to a report from Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute. In the latest report by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, as many as 2.1 million manufacturing jobs will be unfilled through 2030. The report warns the worker shortage will hurt revenue, production and could cost the U.S. economy up to $1 trillion by 2030. The study’s dramatic findings come from online surveys of more than 800 U.S.-based manufacturing leaders, as well as interviews with executives across the industry and economic analyses.

Manufacturing jobs are becoming more complex, including the maintenance of the hi-tech plant equipment. However, the answer to mitigating the labor shortage, transferring of knowledge, meeting compliance mandates and reducing unplanned downtime may be rooted in additional technology.

Asset monitoring and data benefits

The advent of smart machines equipped with IIoT capabilities has revolutionized manufacturing and production processes. This fusion of machine monitoring with IIoT has overcome traditional limitations in data collection, offering a comprehensive solution for modern factories to enhance operational efficiency.

Tracking the performance and condition of machinery in real time enables manufacturers to make informed decisions that boost productivity and reduce costs. Real-time also data empowers manufacturers to make data-driven decisions, detect anomalies and optimize asset utilization. By leveraging these insights, manufacturers can identify inefficiencies, optimize production workflows and address maintenance needs.

Strategically placing sensors on equipment to collect critical operational data and transmit it to machine monitoring software for analysis aids factory managers in making informed decisions regarding maintenance schedules and potential issues. Sensors pick up on performance aberrations that can’t be detected through manual spot checks and personnel monitoring. By detecting the underpinnings of potential issues in real-time, sensors can alert maintenance teams of the need to investigate to prevent a machine failure before it happens.

Real-time systems have thousands of components and sensors, each gathers data and helps ensure that every part of a facility is running effectively; these also can be controlled remotely.

Remote monitoring

Remote alarm notification software also addresses improving operational efficiency, asset monitoring and reducing unplanned downtime. Incorporating this into plants’ existing supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems allows fewer people to monitor many more assets using devices that people already have, such as smartphones and tablets. Uninterrupted remote availability is essential to ensuring systems can be continuously monitored, even without staff onsite or with fewer people working at the facility.

Figure 1: Reports sent to team members’ mobile devices provide heightened visibility into the critical processes monitored by remote alarm notification software. Remote alarm notification software also addresses improving operational efficiency, asset monitoring and reducing unplanned downtime. Courtesy: SmartSights

Remote monitoring of critical plant systems has been extended beyond email, texts and phone calls to include apps that feature time-saving tools like real-time alarm acknowledgements, team chats to troubleshoot and resolve plant problems and detailed reporting for preventing future incidents. Not only does this mean fewer emergency shutdowns, but it also means fewer resources spent on overtime and maintenance.

A mobile alarm notification app is software that integrates with the SCADA or human-machine interface (HMI) software, allowing an employee to monitor, receive and acknowledge plant and machine alarms on their smartphones or tablet, freeing them up to work from home or any other remote location. Hardware and software are available that can monitor equipment and, by applying machine learning to historical data, warn when a breakdown or other problem is imminent. Bolstered by wireless technology and the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), these customizable systems have the potential to bring predictive maintenance to a new level.

Reporting software provides insights

Integrating third-party reporting software provides clear insights for effective decision-making and action, empowering plant managers with operational intelligence to elevate performance. It offers easy access to data from programmable logic controllers (PLCs), historians, alarm history and IoT devices, coupled with built-in analytics that transform raw data into actionable insights. This software automates the reporting process by producing reports on-demand, on-time or on-event; then distributes them directly to preferred destinations. Reporting software streamlines the decision-making process and enhances operational efficiency. Advances in this software also mean reports can be produced as a web browser and available to a wider audience providing them access to the most recent information.

Figure 2: Third-party reporting software provides clear insights for effective decision-making and action, empowering users with operational intelligence to elevate performance. Courtesy: SmartSights

The ability to collect, store and analyze vast amounts of data is not only a competitive advantage but also a necessity for optimizing operations and ensuring compliance with regulations. Data historians are an essential tool in this context. In addition to standard calculation, historian data provides metrics and key performance indicator (KPI) calculations to answer process related questions such as:

• How many times did the pumps cycle?

• What is the average temperatures during production?

• How efficiently is equipment utilized?

• What are the top five occurring alarms?

Compliance mandates

The growing array of manufacturing regulations becomes more challenging to meet due to the increasing role of governmental regulatory bodies in certain industry sectors, along with the emergence of global manufacturing compliance standards to address the increasing global nature of manufacturing.

Figure 3: Tracking the performance and condition of machinery in real time enables manufacturers to make informed decisions that boost productivity and reduce costs. Real-time data also empowers manufacturers to make data-driven decisions, detect anomalies and optimize asset utilization. Courtesy: SmartSights

Automated reporting solutions streamline regulatory compliance by consolidating data from disparate sources like instrumentation readings, program or recipe setpoints, HMI audit trails, alarm history and others. As the data is collected, it’s summarized as key metrics, and the final output is published into a formatted document representing a detailed performance audit of the process execution. This third-party software also produces monthly regulatory reports, which can be automated with government forms.

Manufacturing reimagined

Embracing a data-driven approach to manufacturing enables continuous optimization and keeps manufacturing processes in alignment with industry best practices. The expansion of connectivity provides data access for teams to take optimization into their own hands, driving continuous — rather than instantaneous — optimizations at the level of individual processes, whole factories or even across a complex supply chain.

By managing assets by integrating more technology like remote alarm notification software and reporting software, and then leveraging this data and analytics, manufacturers can increase overall productivity while meeting industry challenges and compliance regulations.

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