Technologies that bring the IoT, the cloud computing and the advanced data analysis inside the factory can offer new opportunities to the industry of household appliances and related components, too. We interviewed some sector companies to understand what is their knowledge level about these new instruments and, more in general, what can be the difficulties and the advantages connected with the implementation of these technologies.
2 In your opinion, what advantages could they bring to the players in your sector? Do you think they could make a company more competitive and efficient?
3 In your opinion, what are the barriers that can hinder the implementation of these technologies in realities like yours?
4 Do you think it is important that you have already implemented other more traditional solutions for the production and logistic area (for instance, ERP, MES, PLC, warehouse management system, etc.) before having the possibility of implementing instruments such as Industrial Internet of Things, Manufacturing Big Data and Cloud Manufacturing?
5 Do you think that IIoT, Big Data and Cloud can offer higher potentialities if used synergistically?
1 I have not had the opportunity of analysing those issues thoroughly, yet. Nevertheless, since my job has always been oriented to the collection and optimization of information, to allow users to manage them simply, I am certainly interested in innovations like IIoT, Manufacturing Big Data and Cloud Manufacturing.
2 Having the possibility of computerizing and automating production machines, of developing the interconnection with suppliers and of relying on a supply chain with computerized steps are all advantages that could facilitate strategic business decisions. Today market information can arrive with such a speed that we must face them immediately. This exacts the availability, always and in real time, of business data, at all levels. In this environment, the possibility of creating more action scenarios becomes winning and a growing calculation performance is necessary to do that.
3 Costs can be an easily identified barrier, especially when the advantage springing from an investment is not understandable. It becomes, therefore, irremissible to make use of higher and higher skills in all business areas, to seize opportunities and to concretize them. Finally, I would add that, in my opinion, at present several of the information partners of Italian companies cannot face challenges like this one, as witnessed by the fact that unfortunately we are one of the less prepared nations to implement innovations of this kind.
4 I consider the occurred implementation of the so-called “more traditional” technologies vital, since the introduction of an ERP system (or its simple upgrading) means to investigate again the efficacy and efficiency of processes and procedures, therefore – concretely – it means re-engineering the entire company.
5 I cannot estimate the possible synergy level and especially the benefit that can derive from it because this should be compared with implementation costs and with the sector specificities where a full system might not have a real added value
1 We know these technologies and we think they are very interesting. In particular, we believe that Internet of Things and Manufacturing Big Data can find valid applications in the next future. We believe instead that in our industrial sector the concepts of Cloud Manufacturing will need longer times to allow applications that really and actually improve our competitiveness. As Robert Kaplan affirmed, in industry we cannot manage what we cannot improve and today it is very clear that to win the competition – which moves the bar higher and higher every year – it is necessary not only to rely on more and more precise, numerous and detailed data but it is also essential to be able to synthesize them, to achieve the strategic information needed to take daily the right decisions. In our business, it is important to offer a big number of models and variants that are ordered by our customers in small quantities at a time. It is clear that the programming of material purchase and of production is essential to reduce drastically costs and the obsolescence risks connected with the stocks of components and raw materials. At present, we are assessing the possibility of improving our system of sale forecast generation, going beyond the traditional use of historical data. Automatically collecting information from the numerous sites that propose in the various markets online sales of ours and competitors’ products, we can – according to the trend of the offered prices – deduce the main trends and then consolidate them by geographical area and product typology. In this way, we will be potentially able to improve sales forecasts both in the short and in the medium/long term. Consequently, we will succeed in planning the production better and in improving the material provisioning. Moreover, thanks to these data, we think we will be able to define well in advance the priorities to invest in new product families in terms of research & development. Naturally, the target is to land on the market before our competitors, with solutions better satisfying consumers’ requirements. In the future, we even expect that our appliances, through sensors connected with the net, will inform us about their use modalities, allowing us, in design phase, to allocate the product value exactly and only where the customer perceives it.
2 The manufacturing industry is constantly in search of competitiveness. At present, we have obtained notable improvements thanks to the standardization of components and processes, coupled with the enhanced optimization of manufacturing processes themselves. Through the Lean Manufacturing approach, we have eliminated non-added value activities and we have simplified and automated added-value operations. Finally, we have strongly streamlined and integrated the entire supply chain. The rooms for the efficiency-enhancement left in these ambits are now, inevitably, limited and more and more difficult to obtain. These new technologies offer a potential answer to this problem, highlighting criticalities and improvement opportunities differently, so providing new possible approaches and models for the next competitiveness leap.
3 The huge investments in IT lavished during past years can be a relevant hindrance if the adoption of smart technologies needs a change of solution or of technological partner. Besides, we have to manage well the risk that a “top down” approach to the use of these technologies limits the involvement of the factory staff, with the potential consequence of damaging the benefits already achieved through the implementation of concepts of Total Quality Management and Lean Manufacturing.
4 Yes, absolutely, especially if the company has already implemented the most “traditional” technologies strategically and with a long-term vision. It is likely that a reliable database, on which to construct new processes and applications, will be therefore already available. Finally yet importantly, in the company there will be a culture of information and decision management based on facts and data rather than on sensations and opinions.
5 Certainly, as it often happens, the synergy among these technologies offers better potentialities compared to those provided by a single solution. In particular, I identify great opportunities in the integration between the Industrial Internet of Things and Manufacturing Big Data. I consider instead more remote in time, at least for our industrial sector, an extended application of Cloud Manufacturing concepts.
1 We know these solutions very well and we apply them by our structures. Apart from the standard ERP, which at us is on SAP platform and which, concerning operations, supports us in the management of materials, of the supply chain and of the production progress, we have manifold other expressions of the Manufacturing Big Data. We produce, for instance, electronic cards upon customers’ specifications and it is necessary to satisfy determinate qualitative standards for them. Concerning this, the first thing we had to implement was a department of automatic testing. When cards enter this division, they slide on the conveyor belt and each testing machine that they cross identifies them with a barcode reader. The code is coupled with the test result, the file with the main testing parameters and the indication of the operators who have carried out the control. As soon as cards end the testing chain, they are “marked” directly in line with an inkjet industrial printer. Also the machines of the Tunisian factory, even if less automated, have barcode readers to identify cards and these, too, register data (besides locally) on the database of the headquarters. These solutions allow us to know test results in real time and to trace the main parameters of the electronic card both in case of “pass” and in case of “fail”. In the latter situation, obviously, the availability of testing information permits the entrusted department to analyse the malfunction causes and eventually proceed to the repair. Besides, the cloud computing allows us to share with the various factories or with subcontractors the information needed by production, like the “Manufacturing and Control Plan”, assembling procedures, the related technical documentation etc.
2 I think that these technologies can bring numerous advantages. I believe so strongly in their usefulness in terms of efficiency and competitiveness increment that I think that a factory deprived of these investments can hardly survive in Italy. Perhaps, it can do that in low cost areas, compensating with additional labour, but always with relevant risks in terms of scarce quality and production errors. Not to mention the stock management: today, in fact, the market requires more promptness and customization. Lean techniques lead us (rightly) towards the “one piece flow” concept and this unavoidably generates the code fragmentation. With various customers, we have implemented systems based on a single HW, which is customized in line with radiofrequency or infrared solutions. For another of our customers, household appliance manufacturer, for a couple of years we have been producing cards with SD Card and Ethernet connector, thanks to which it is possible to monitor products and to integrate them with other systems of the house. Such technologies allow more efficient maintenance activities and technical interventions, the energy saving and the possibility of statistical analyses concerning the use modalities of household appliances.
3 Some criticalities (like the company size, costs, personnel’s training etc.) can be a hindrance to the use of smart technologies, but they are part of the game. When we talk about these solutions, we generally use enthusiastic and simplistic tones, however their implementation needs time and means. Otherwise, why would we call them “investments”? In Gitronica, precisely in past years (that is to say at the crisis peak), we decided allocating very huge resources to concretize these technologies. In other terms, we intended to be ready and more advanced than competitors, once the market had recovered its dynamism. And figures, already today, say we are right. Just thanks to these solutions, last year we could “face” the 11% growth without needing to enlarge the structure!
4 No, I think they are distinct things, which can live and have a meaning independently one another. It is clear that the higher is their integration the higher are the attainable benefits. I believe that one of the strong points of these technologies is just their scalability. In other terms, it is not necessary to deliberate a mega-investment in IT, as we did for instance when we chose SAP, we can simply use a systematic logic, a sort of “appetite comes with eating”.
5 Sometimes these technologies can offer better potentialities if used synergistically, in other cases their integration is fully superfluous. Our CRM, for instance, which is essentially used to develop new markets, is not integrated to SAP, and we will never pay back the investments needed to connect them. On the contrary, we do not need to underline the benefits of solutions that connect customers’ systems with suppliers’.
1 I believe there is an intimate connection between the use of IIoT and Big Data, at least in steady state operation. In Sabaf, there are some projects in advanced implementation phase that we have defined “Internet of Machinery”. We have activated bidirectional integration flows between the managerial system and the PLC of production machines. On one hand, we send setup data (machining and testing parameters) to machines, on the other hand, we capture the myriad of qualitative, dimensional and performance information of processes on machine board. The target is not only to satisfy customers’ more and more pressing demands but also to flush out, from the punctual data analysis, inefficiencies or value gaps. At present, we have not activated specific systems of Manufacturing Big Data, but we will be compelled to do that as soon as the amount of collected data is consistent. Concerning the Cloud Manufacturing, we currently only observe its evolutions.
2 Advantages are potentially enormous. Over the last few years, Italian enterprises have been committed to maintaining their positions in the global redesign of markets and of the competition, re-acting more on exogenous boosts (internationalisations and takeovers) than endogenous (Lean and Digital Manufacturing, process optimization). The new IIoT and Big Data instruments, supported by analysis systems (BI), will offer companies the possibility of “looking insight” with more awareness and of acting, simultaneously, both for the cost reduction (process optimizations, decrease or elimination of wastes, predictive analyses, integration with suppliers) and for the indirect rise of proceeds (promptness and reliability of answers to customers, new services and co-design). The Cloud Manufacturing, once reached the due maturity level, will be a powerful instrument of collaboration with customers and suppliers, as well as an opportunity for start-ups and SME to gain access to hardware and software resources otherwise accessible only to consolidated or big-size companies.
3 As usual, the reluctance to chance constitutes the first hindrance. Structural type problems then will remain, connected with the costs/business size ratio, as well as those related to the quality of applications; criticalities that will we overcome in time with the decrease of costs and the maturity of proposed solutions. Concerning Italy, we should not neglect the problem of the still unaccomplished project of the broadband diffusion. All systems at stake will generate value only if accompanied by TLC infrastructures that will go beyond the classic company/Country borders.
4 Not only I deem important to implement the standard logistic systems in the company (to clarify the picture of the operational and architectural complexities), but in particular I think it is essential to do that with the utmost possible integration with the existing ERP system. A strong integration is in fact strategic in terms of outcomes. I make an example: in Sabaf, the design of products and of machines (to manufacture them) is a critical success factor. In 2010, our technical office decided to use the PLM module of the international ERP suite used by all companies of the Group. Today, at Sabaf, logistic master data (material registries and classification, equipment and tools, cycles, bill of materials, suppliers and customers etc.) are the same for the entire Group: a determinant facilitator for a sound integration with the new IIoT and Big Data systems (anyway already available in the ERP suite of our company).
5 As already said, at steady state I deem Industrial Internet of Things and Big Data technologies absolutely essential each other. These solutions, if implemented in a Cloud Manufacturing architecture, will produce synergistic value only if integrated with the other modules and if consistent with the functional applicative design of the cloud eco-system.
