- Solve the problems right the first time
- Reduce equipment downtime
- Improve your bottom-line
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s a hypothetical situation to paint the story ‘how real-time information and predictive analytics unlock value.’
To start, imagine a fully functioning assembly line with a robot, a pneumatic system, a series of conveyors, and a vision system.
Let’s pretend the supply station in the back is bringing in our raw materials. The robot is assembling those materials with precision. The resulting assemblies are then passed on to the quality station, and the vision system inspects each of those assemblies to ensure proper alignment of the parts.
This is a pretty generic operation, but it can show how unified real-time information and predictive analytics unlock value.
Now imagine yourself as a maintenance engineer, who wants to check the status of your asset pool.
Using software, such as ThingWorx Navigate by PTC for example, you launch a role-based maintenance application. All of a sudden you see a complete list of your assets with real-time performance stats and relevant alerts or notifications. You also have a complete list of all your outstanding maintenance work orders.
From here, you have the ability to drill into any of your assets, but you start with the quality station. You immediately see the key characteristics of the station. You see that speed vibration and temperature are all operating within their specified range. You could also see notifications of any warnings, malfunctions, or potential future problems.
Next, you use your device to take a look at the pneumatic system. The pneumatic system also looks fine. Both pressure and flow are operating within the specified range, and there are no outstanding maintenance tickets or work order notifications on your screen.
Now, let’s consider a situation where there was a leak in the pneumatic system. Let’s say a loose fitting was releasing pressure, a fairly common problem in pneumatic systems. Now, rather than looking fine, your device displays flow readings outside of the designated operating range. Furthermore, an alert has automatically been sent to notify you that a system has an error. The overall status indicator on your screen has now switched from green to orange – operational, but not optimal.
Your software solution’s machine learning is now predicting that this air leak, if not repaired, will result in a pneumatic gate failure in approximately 10 day’s time. The good news for you is the system has already issued you a maintenance work order to address the problem before asset failure and unplanned downtime.
This scenario is made possible by a system equipped with primary and secondary sensors, and a complete Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solution that can turn raw machine data into valuable information.
For example, your pneumatic system has an airflow sensor, as well as a pressure sensor. The conveyor systems are equipped with motor temperature sensors and vibration sensors.
In addition to the sensors, the rest of the assets on your line are controlled by typical PLCs, which are connected to software such as ThingWorx and Kepware.
You have also used your software to integrate manufacturing floor systems with real-time IT applications, asset maintenance tools, and ERP systems. This provides you with a real-time alignment of your IT and OT systems.
Now, all of your systems are throwing data out at a staggering 800 data points per second.
Your software’s machine learning then uses that real-time streaming data to establish a baseline of normal operating conditions. This way it can immediately connect and broadcast any anomalies that occur. It uses these anomalies, in conjunction with its prediction capabilities to notify you of future problems, just as in the case of the pneumatic failure.
Now that you have an understanding of what is happening under the hood, let’s take a look at how all this comes together to enable real-time operational intelligence.
Pretend you are a production manager. Using software like ThingWorx Navigate and Kepware you have complete visibility into all of your factory operations. You can see all of your work orders, lines, and all of their critical KPI’s.
On your device, you notice an orange status indicator on line one (that was created from the air leak earlier). Once that air leak has been repaired, everything returns back to normal, just as you would expect.
Let’s explore one more hypothetical situation. Consider yourself to be an operator. In this case, you have just been assigned a new order for a thousand units that need to be delivered and expedited for an end-of-day delivery.
You’re notified of the order and in this smart connected scenario you, as an operator have a single portal from which you can see and execute all of your work. Through a single pane of glass, you now have access to your business systems information and your operational data including the KPIs from your line.
On your device, you also have up-to-the-minute visibility of the OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). You see real-time data measurements of your manufacturing operation’s availability, quality, and performance.
Let’s see how some of these metrics might change if we go ahead and speed up the line to accelerate the current order, in order to make room for that expedited order.
To do that you switch the line speed from level one to level two. What you see in seconds on your device is that line speed has increased, and your assemblies are still passing the quality check.
Within a couple of minutes and a few additional cycles, on your device, you see both your performance and OEE trending upwards.
As an operator, you now are assured that you are going to meet your end-of-the-day deadline.
Using these hypothetical situations, together we have painted a picture demonstrating how you can connect disparate assets from different vendors, to provide real-time information.
You’ve also seen how you can leverage role-based applications that combine business systems information and operational data to empower your workforce with real-time actionable intelligence.
By integrating machine-learning capabilities you brought a whole new level of predictive intelligence to your factory floor, identified problems, and resolved issues with minimal impact on operational performance.
This is exactly how real-time information and predictive analytics can unlock value for your organization.
Technology solutions available on the market today truly have the capability to empower you and your organization; especially during times like these where communication and collaboration are vital to your success.
Today, a high-performance workforce requires expensive training programs, equipment maintenance, travel budgets, and support systems. Yet, many are facing problems due to limited travel, social distancing, and enforced remote working policies.
Vuforia Chalk creates a new way to tackle these business requirements, and even better yet, we are offering free access to Vuforia Chalk for a limited time to help Manufacturing and Service organizations cope with the COVID-19 Crisis.
Vuforia Chalk Free Access Program
The Vuforia Chalk Free Access Program is available right now through August 31st, 2020. Fill out the form at the top of our Vuforia Chalk webpage.
Once you’ve filled out the form you’ll be auto-enrolled in our Vuforia Chalk Quick Start Program – a free consultative guide to get you started with the software on the right foot.
What is Vuforia Chalk?
Vuforia Chalk is an easy-to-use, powerful remote assistance support application that allows your workforce to collaborate in real-time, from anywhere. This application combines real-time video with advanced AR technology to create a simple and intuitive user-experience that anybody can use.
Why Vuforia Chalk?
The Vuforia chalk app is a great entry point for Augmented reality, especially when it comes to existing and long-standing workforces.
Why? Because it is simple and intuitive to use. This application requires a minimal amount of training, and doesn’t involve the use of specialized equipment, like many other Augmented Reality applications on the market today.
With Vuforia Chalk users are able to use mobile devices they already own today, meaning your most experienced minds are accessible anytime, anywhere.
How Vuforia Chalk enhances remote collaboration
Vuforia Chalk lets your employees share a live view of their workspace with an expert, or co-worker, allowing your workforce to easily connect for support or training.
With Chalk, simple instructions can help your team solve complex problems quickly and effectively while reducing costs and increasing technician efficiency.
The AR application also allows both users with the ability to draw on the screen directly from their mobile device to provide instructions as if they were right there face-to-face.
With Vuforia augmented reality, your annotations stick exactly where they are drawn, even when you move around as you work. In fact, you can even pause the live view to draw easy to follow, multi-step instructions.
Chalk is ideal for service and training, as well as other forms of collaboration too.
It makes it easy for your team to work together or give feedback from almost any place in the world – saving you time and money.
Having your best minds on a job remotely allows your organization to:
With Chalk’s simple learning curve, organizations are now able to implement an AR strategy into their business quickly and effectively, allowing even the aging workforce to be able to learn to use the tool efficiently.
Start using Vuforia Chalk for Free
Get enrolled in PTC’s Vuforia Chalk Free Access Program by filling out the form on our Vuforia Chalk webpage – which will auto-enroll you in our Vuforia Chalk Quick Start Program. Here’s the guide for reference to see what to expect.
AR and IoT are beginning to transform the way organizations are interacting in their industrial environments.
With the ability to integrate technology everywhere, products, processes, and people now have the ability to be connected like never before, allowing enterprises to drive product and service differentiation and promote operational effectiveness, workforce productivity, and unmatched quality.
Some might refer to this concept as the idea of digital transformation…but what does that really even mean? This article breaks it all down for you.
Digital Transformation with IoT and AR.
Today, innovative Augmented Reality tools have the ability to connect with powerful IoT data while working seamlessly in a service and training environment. With a mobile device or AR headset, technicians can easily learn to work in tandem drastically reducing training time and downtime simultaneously.
To better understand a concept of ‘digital transformation’, I’ll walk you through a real-life scenario involving one of our customers.
For this specific customer, the combination of AR and IoT has drastically improved the efficiency of their operations.
With the use of an AR application, our customer is able to provide their off-site workers with a digital model of one of their products immediately.
Placed alongside the digital model of their product, they are also able to see real-time data from the physical product that is off-site or working in the field.
This is possible because their AR experience also leverages a connection with their IoT platform, known as ThingWorx.
Their ThingWorx IoT platform connects to their disparate data systems, such as their ERP and CRM systems. It also connects to their PLM software, which provides them with the ability to pull a configuration from their PLM software, known as Windchill. This allows them to showcase unique product information, such as the VIN, model, customer and purchase information.
By having this data available and in context, remote technicians are better informed and empowered to make the best decisions possible.
As technicians launch their AR experience, they are able to see step by step instructions on how to repair or service the specific product.
They are also able to see warnings and replay steps that are integrated into the AR experience so they can be assured they are working in a safe environment without missing any procedures.
With the additional use of Vuforia Chalk, a remote video assistance app, employees are also able to instantly access remote subject matter experts or SMEs who can answer questions related to the experience and interact with the experience directly by drawing on the screen.
Finally, with time tracked throughout the experience, this service data can then be sent back to their ThingWorx IoT platform to assess performance, training, and to improve the CAD design leader.
By combining the use of AR and IoT, training and servicing is no longer hindered by traditional learning for our customer. Instead, their technicians are able learn from an experience that is enriched with data and context.
By leveraging ThingWorx, our customer is able to merge the digital and physical worlds of service providing their organization with an efficient and productive work environment.
This is the idea of digital transformation.
Curious how digital transformation might apply to your organization? We would love to have a conversation. Click the banner below to learn more.
The very definition of many industries is changing in no small part due to the of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its’ ability to disrupt and generate new business opportunities. Industry leaders across the board are starting to embrace IoT projects, use IoT devices, and build smart connected products using IoT platforms.
This article references real IoT case study stories and internet of things examples from John Deere and Nike to provide you with a better understanding of how the IoT is starting to shake up and disrupt industries.
To paint you a picture of exactly how the IoT is creating business opportunities for organizations today, let’s start with a company you might already be familiar with – John Deere.
Before the rise of IoT
John Deere has been making tractors and agriculture equipment for over 175 years.
For many years, though, they made simple tractors that weren’t ‘smart’ or connected products, they were just mechanical.
Soon enough, over time, John Deere’s products started to become smart and connected– changing everything for the organization.
Creating smart products & connecting devices
John Deere began to equip their products with digital dashboards, engine control units, sensors to alert users if they are running out gas, if oil pressure is too high, if hydraulic pressure is too low, etc.
By doing so, John Deere began to realize the countless benefits that came along with connecting their agricultural equipment to the internet of things, which eventually would provide the ability to remotely monitor the equipment’s performance.
Now remember, at this point, John Deer was still a tractor company, but as the organization moved forward with their vision of smart connected products, they also created what is called a smart connected product system.
The evolution of a smart connected product system & Digital Transformation
At the heart of John Deer’s product system is what is called a combine harvester. Their combine harvester harvests grain from fields, separates the head or the ear from the stalk, and divides the hulls, cobs, and the husks from the kernels of grain.
Today these smart connected combines have the ability to smartly monitor how many kernels came from a single patch of land, and how many kernels came from another.
In fact, they even collect, store, and send data to the cloud for the following season – so the machine is able to perform what is called a smart planting scheme.
During the smart planting scheme, the tractor hooks up to a tiler, which is basically a plow. As the plow works the soil, the equipment frequently fertilizes it, particularly with nitrogen. The equipment then follows its smart planting scheme – if the yield was low, nitrogen application should be high in a particular spot. If the yield was high, nitrogen should decrease.
Next from the connected product system comes the tractor pulling the planter that puts kernels in the ground for next year’s crop. It’s doing the same thing.
With a wide variety of seeds, the planter makes smart decisions for specific spots as needed. The smart connected equipment even knows when to use different drought resistant seeds in particular dry patches of land.
Smart products and the internet of things
John Deere created their own unique smart connected product system with the equipment they manufacture. By using smart connected devices, sensors, and building on top of an IoT platform, they slowly started to connect their entire product line.
This breakthrough in farming equipment enabled their products to work together and share data back and forth.
Farmers are now able to correlate their inputs and outputs, while reducing inputs and maximizing outputs. This means productivity and profits.
Taking it a step further, John Deere designed a smart farm system where, depending upon commodity prices, the equipment has the ability to plants different seeds.
Farms that irrigate now have the ability to place sensors in the soil to that read moisture levels. Using this knowledge, the smart equipment is able to determine whether it should apply more or less water to particular locations.
Agricultural equipment can now even assess upcoming weather forecasts and determine if irrigation is critical.
Today, John Deer is leading the way in utilizing IoT in agriculture.
New business opportunities with IoT
John Deere went from selling tractors to selling sophisticated information systems that can run smart farms.
With the technological advancements around today, a company like John Deere now has to determine the actual business they are in.
IoT presents new industry opportunity
Somewhere along the way, while developing smart connected products, John Deere became a software company and a systems integrator.
The internet of things presented John Deere with an opportunity to compete within an entirely new industry.
In fact, some say with this the new industry opportunity, John Deere even has the ability to compete with other well-known IT system integrators – such as Accenture.
The internet of things and smart connected products present a very interesting phenomenon, that’s happening right now.
Homes are beginning to transition to smart homes. Automobiles are starting to become smart. It’s happening everywhere you turn, even if in some cases it might be very subtly, or slow.
Products are evolving
Nike is another great example of how the IoT has started to accelerate and transform organizations.
Historically, Nike has made shoes, clothes and sunglasses – but today, their product line is now much more than that.
For Nike, it’s no longer just about clothes and shoes anymore. Their products have evolved from fitness equipment to fitness monitoring systems – driving personal health and wellness goals.
They too, started connecting their products by adding sensors into their shoes, clothes, and Fuel Bands. This has enabled their smart connected products to help people maintain physical fitness and health.
Businesses possibilities of IoT
With the real-world examples from John Deere and Nike, it’s easy see how businesses are starting to expand their industry boundaries with the internet of things.
The world is changing, smart connected products are continually evolving. What is your organization doing to stay ahead?
Explore the business possibilities of IoT for your organization
Organizations today are adopting valuable IoT solutions to lower operating costs, increase productivity, and develop new products.
The Internet of Things can offer your organization an opportunity to be more efficient whether its connecting devices with automated systems that gather information, analyzing IoT data, creating an action to learn from a process, achieving the pinnacle – remote control, support and maintenance.
We want to help you achieve your IoT objectives
Not sure what the advantages of IoT are for your organization? We would love to help you define and push your boundaries!
Our technology specialists are experts at devising what IoT solutions, devices, projects, and business models are best suited for your organization. Let’s have a conversation.
