The Results are In: IoT on the Shop Floor is a Money Maker

The news is in on the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and this technology is something your organization does not want to miss out on. According to research firm, MPI Group, companies who have embraced IoT technology and deployed targeted solutions are coming back with astonishingly good results. These companies are even pulling ahead of their competitors thanks to the technology.

For the second year in a row, MPI Group conducted a study on the Internet of Things, examining changes among manufacturers and their adoption of IoT technologies. The results from the 2017 study show manufacturers that have moved towards IoT technology are making money.

• 69% of manufacturers improved profitability over the last year by leveraging IoT within their plants and offices
• 65% of manufacturers improved profitability over the last year by selling smart/intelligent products (i.e. IoT-enabled products)

According to the study, the news is wonderful for manufacturers who have already adopted IoT technology and implemented it into their production strategy, but for those who haven’t, it ought to be a warning to manufacturers being left behind.

They risk permanent competitive disadvantage if they don’t start at least experimenting with the IoT now, said John R. Brandt, the MPI Group study’s author, in his article in Industry Week. For the second year in a row, they tell us that their biggest challenge is simply identifying opportunities to implement the IoT. In other words: I don’t know where to start. However, Brandt says that with more and more manufacturers already improving productivity and their bottom lines with the IoT, I-don’t-know-where-to-start, is beginning to sound more like an excuse than an obstacle.

Getting Started

As a discrete manufacturer who hasn’t addressed IoT in your company, now is a good time to get going. There are many ways you can get started. One big area to focus on is automation. The more you can automate, the lower your costs will be and the greater your production. And a nice side benefit is your people will be happier too.

When we are talk about automation, we mean the shop floor and the back office. For more on back office automation, check out our previous blog post: Automating Your Company’s Back Office.

So what about automating your shop floor? According to a report by Manufacturing Industry Perspectives, The most basic process improvement—automating the shop floor—still holds the greatest potential for streamlining activities, trimming waste, and boosting profitability.

Machine-2-Machine (M2M) technologies, machine sensors, smart manufacturing software, additive manufacturing, augmented reality, and industrial robotics have all had a hand in advancing shop floor automation. Startup manufacturers and small to medium-sized businesses can all afford to add automation processes to their production facilities.

At one end of the spectrum, manufacturers still rely on manual systems for scheduling, planning, assigning crews to tasks, monitoring through-put, and locating products and components. In some job-shop industries, such as metal fabrication, manufacturers and fabricators tend to be especially reluctant to retire job packets and the classic scheduling board that is mounted on the wall where it can be seen across the floor. This old-school technique is still embedded in some shops, largely because it continues to fill a purpose. Production managers need to see at-a-glance which machines are running particular products or processes. The paper-based systems can accomplish this, but with low levels of efficiency and accuracy.

In today’s highly competitive market, where manufacturers feel the need to operate with tight margins, paper-based systems are slow and inefficient. But with more devices (computers, tablets and machinery) in the organization, a manufacturer has access to more readily available data. Quick review of an automated shop floor helps identify areas of waste, such as idle machines, gaps in workflow, and costly delays due to inventory stock outages, in real-time. This vision into the depths of the organization provides tremendous opportunity to increase profits by maximizing efficiency, improving quality and optimizing resources.

The inevitable influx of data that manufacturers are starting to have access to can open big doors for the industry. The range of new tech solutions on the plant floor, along with the wealth of data from connected devices, sensors and real-time analytics, bring a heightened level of connectivity and efficiency to manufacturing, Michael Kotelec, in his blog post on Manufacturing.Net.

Beacon Technology allows production managers to see at a glance which machines are running and which ones are down. The Lake Companies pioneered Beacon-Trak® which allows managers to walk their production floor armed with a tablet and receive real-time, proximity-based information on machines and human operators in the vicinity. As a manager walks the shop, Beacon-Trak quickly shows work centers in the area, as well as the associates working them, and the jobs they are working on—all without having to manually search for the information. Beacon-Trak automatically filters the information in order to provide real-time feedback on utilization, efficiency, quality, status information, and more, with a simple touch screen interface.

Other ways to automate your shop floor are to get rid of bottleneck time clocks and toss paper-based scheduling systems. Old-fashioned punch clocks and paper-based schedules are holding back manufacturers and keeping them from operating at peak efficiency.

Enter Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Shop-Trak™, another shop floor innovation developed by The Lake Companies to boost shop floor productivity. But it’s more than just about improving efficiency; it coordinates, in real-time, a manufacturer’s business application, both shop floor and the rest of the enterprise data, so sales, finance, design, management, and operations teams are all working with the same goals. Better yet, Shop-Trak™ provides manufacturing information the moment it happens to Beacon-Trak®.

The automation in Shop-Trak™ allows the workforce to produce jobs in the same sequence they are scheduled, constantly monitoring efficiencies and providing that information to supervisors using Beacon-Trak® so exceptions are quickly resolved and products gotten to the customer on time. Shop-Trak™ also relieves completed work from the automated scheduling system so scheduling can quickly take advantage of higher efficiencies and the resulting available capacity. The result: greater efficiency, shorter lead times, lower costs, more accurate schedules. All of this allows the integrated planning systems to allow customer service to promise accurate delivery dates to customers.

IoT Solutions

IoT is here to stay. It’s not a tiring fad, so startup manufacturers and small to medium-sized businesses need to get moving by investing in the future and bringing this technology in-house. Waiting only results in the competition moving further up the road and YOUR customers taking notice.

For decades, The Lake Companies has been in the business of helping discreet manufacturers develop and leverage technologies proven to grow their bottom line. Bringing new technology and methods of operations into your business doesn’t have to be as troubling as a visit to the dentist office. It’s about streamlining process to make work easier, more efficient, and productive for everyone in the organization. We invite you to contact us to explore how we can help your organization boost your success today.